Make Art Make Money Summary

Make Art Make Money by Elizabeth Hyde Stevens is a gem of a book. Before reading Elizabeth’s book I didn’t know much about Jim Henson’s life and career. After reading it I feel like I went along on his journey. I followed his transformation from humble beginnings to one of the most well known artists of the modern era. If you are an artist or creative trying to make a living off your art it is a must read. This wonderful biography will change your mind about what is possible for creatives.

Here are some things I found especially interesting in the book.

1. Success takes hard work

Jim Henson was not only a great artist he was also a smart businessman. He built an empire with the Muppets and Sesame Street, amassing a net worth of $150 million before his death, and he did it without sacrificing his vision. How did he do it? One thing you must realize is creating great art takes not only a lot of time but some luck as well.

As Stevens says “[I]f you’re wondering why, as the song goes, you haven’t made it yet, perhaps you just haven’t earned it yet.” You need to make your time count. You must give “total self-sacrifice and servitude” towards your art if you want to succeed.

The problem with most creatives is they want instant success. There is not a single self-made person in this world who has achieved success without putting in the work. Those instant successes are likely the results of years of hard work.

Henson became a puppeteer because a children’s show came to his high school looking for pupeteers. He won the audition and taught himself how to be a pupeteer. While on the show, producers from another network saw his work and hired him. This may seem like an instant success story, but it neglects all the hard work that went into achieving this success.

Henson honed his craft on the first show he worked on and he was eventually given his own show Sam and Friends. Even though the show was only five minutes long, he worked all day to create them. He worked endlessly on his craft and even stepped into the control room to learn from the technicians. Sam and Friends was also the birth place of the world’s most famous frog, Kermit.

2. Surround yourself with like minded people

Often times artists want to live alone on an island. They believe their best work only comes when they do everything themselves. This is the opposite of Jim Henson.Henson encouraged collaboration and play into his efforts to bring about his best work. He realized that he couldn’t do it all on his own.

Henson had great power, but it came from generosity. As Stevens described it, “If you want a job like Henson’s, you need to give someone else a job.” Henson’s work required collaboration and as an audience we can feel the joy of his team of people working well together.

During one stint on Sam and Friends, Henson took a six week trip to Europe to get away from all of the work he was putting in. The remarkable thing is, the show didn’t stop when he left. The reigns were handed over to Jane. Upon coming back from his stay in Europe, he learned he could step back and rely on others. The show was bigger than him, and Jane’s work proved that to him. He also realized that he was meant to be with Jane and they would later get married.

“Henson’s marriage effectively set the tone for the kind of relationship he would cultivate with his next employees— that of partnership, family, and brotherhood.”

The teams Henson created for each of his projects were good because he found the right people. Instead of choosing the best or most qualified candidates, Henson chose people he knew would fit his crew. He even hired people who had never pupeteered before.

For Fraggle Rock, Henson hired actors, jugglers, and mime artists to work on the show. He wasn’t just looking for people who were good puppeteers, he was looking for people with a sense of humor and a spark. According to one account, the auditions felt “relaxed and low-key.” They were filled with a lot of laughs. Puppeteering can be taught, having a passion and a love for your work can not.

The people Henson hired also had to be passionate about their work. Every artist’s goal is to make something good. When you are working day and night “the line between job and life is indistinguishable.” Most artists work to create something great, to become a master at their craft. This was especially true for the teams Henson assembled.

The point is, Henson wanted people who could both have fun and be passionate about their work. He wanted to surround himself with people who were like him.

3. Henson funded his art by making commercials

Before Henson struck it big with Sesame Street and the Muppets he needed a way to fund his projects. The art he wanted to create wouldn’t be able to pay for itself so he turned to where the money was: commercials.

By creating commercials, Henson was able to successfully fund his other projects. Henson was making a lot of money through his commercials and he understood that making money was good for his art.

The money Henson made from commercials allowed him to experiment. The only limit to his creativity was his imagination.

It may be hard to imagine Henson creating commercials for the corporate world, but they paid a lot of money. The compromise he made was turning the commercials into spoofs. He used commercials as a way to create skits. In them his puppets would parody the product they were promoting. Companies loved these parodies so much that they started asking Henson to spoof their products.

Although Henson earned a lot of money from making commercials, Sesame Street gave him an excuse to quit his commercial making gig. He made enough money that he was able to choose what he wanted to work on. He chose Sesame Street so he could educate young minds.

Henson was able to leverage his success with Sesame Street to make The Muppet Show, and from there he went on to make movies. Stevens sums it up perfectly:

“Looking back on Henson’s career, one thing led to another. Sam and Friends led to commercials. Commercials led to Sesame Street. Sesame Street led to licensing. Licensing led to The Muppet Show, and The Muppet Show led to movies. Henson made art make money and then made money make art. And though it was right for Henson to quit ads when he did, they were an important step along the way.”

4. Innovation and quality were key to his success

Jim Henson grew up in a time ripe for innovation and invention. As a child, the televisions was a new medium. Henson used this to his advantage.

What was the key to the success of Henson’s work? He never settled for good enough. That doesn’t mean he created a specific vision that everyone followed. According to Stevens, his version of quality “required not just his own creativity, but the creativity of those around him.” Instead of following his ideas exactly, he wanted others to co-create those worlds together. Henson knew ideas created together would be better than his vision alone.

Henson wanted to push the envelope and break barriers. He wanted to create to surprise and to create something truly new. His brand of innovation required a lot of experimentation. It also cost a lot of money. This is one of the reasons it is so hard to copy Henson’s work. It takes a lot of money to create such an expensive high quality product.

We may take it for granted now, but Sesame Street at its time was innovative. It was a combination of “Madison Avenue, Harvard curriculum experts, nonprofit television, and network comedy writers.” This newness is what drew Henson to Sesame Street. It was something that was never done before. It was another experiment. Stevens describes it like this:

“When you’re working on the never-before, your employees feel exhilarated and invested in their work, and so do you . Everyone does their best, and in that sense, it is of quality. If you create quality, you create value.”

5. Never stop pitching

Jim Henson spent his whole life pitching his ideas to others. His imagination and ambition were unmatched. Since his first audition, the puppet show on local TV, Henson spent much of his time pitching his ideas. He did this so he could eventually make what he wanted.

Henson had to pitch in every phase of his career. Here is a list of all the pitches he had to make:

Sam and Friends

He had to pitch his own ideas to get his very first show on local TV.

Commercials

He pitched all the commercials he made to other companies so they would hire him.

His Agent

Experimental Films and Toys

He had to pitch his ideas so people would fund his experimental film and toy ideas.

Sesame Street

He had to pitch Sesame Street to win over the press, parents, and teachers. Even while at Sesame Street, Henson continued to pitch so he wouldn’t be pigeon-holed as a kiddie entertainer. He did this by creating Muppet TV specials.

Muppet Specials

He had to pitch his Muppet specials to multiple TV stations, but this still didn’t get him his own Muppets show. He had to pitch for six years before he landed The Muppet Show. The funds for the show came from angel investor Lew Grade who was convinced to invest because of Henson’s constant pitching.

The Muppet Show

He had to pitch the first season of The Muppet Show to get more funding for the other seasons of the show. The show became such a success that Henson was finally able to work on his next project: movies. His first two movies The Muppet Movie and The Great Muppet Caper were both successes.

Movies

He had to pitch his Muppet movies so he could finally work on his dream project The Dark Crystal. Unfortunately The Dark Crystal and his second dream project Labyrinth were not commercial successes. This caused Henson to shift his focus from movies. Instead he moved his efforts towards creating a great number of shows.

Show Producer

He pitched a bunch of shows so he could sell his company to Disney. At this point in his career Henson wanted to be bought out so he could get back to creating. He wanted to use Disney’s money so he could create projects without worrying about expenses. Sadly, Henson was not able to see this through because of his untimely death.

Why Henson Pitched

If you learn anything from all of Henson’s pitching, it’s that artists must pitch to be successful. The only way to get your work in front of more people, and achieve your ultimate goals, is by pitching. No matter how much success Henson saw at each stage of his career, he still continued to pitch.

Stevens describes it like this:

“In order to have your independence— your creative freedom— as an artist, you have to just keep pitching.

You can convince people of anything, as long as you try enough people, and as long as you really believe in it yourself. If you believe in your art, make a pitch for it today. Spend a day at the easel working on a pitch of some kind. Watch Jim Henson’s impressive pitching for inspiration, and then go out and sell, sell, sell!”

Conclusion

Jim Henson was one of the most revered creators of his time. He not only revolutionized the use of puppets in entertainment, he also dramatically changed the possibilities of what you can accomplish on TV and in film.

He accomplished this by working hard, surrounding himself with the right people, innovating, and pitching his work. He was not afraid of making money from commercials or selling out because he knew he could use this money to fund his projects.

There are a lot of lessons you can learn by studying Henson’s life. This review is just a short summary of the treasures found in Make Art Make Money. I could not recommend Elizabeth Hyde Stevens’ book highly enough.

Trouble arises in societies when a person tries to convert a gift into a commodity.
LOCATION: 68

Gifts, on the other hand, are given in sacrifice with no hope of return,
LOCATION: 73

For art to truly affect us, it needs to be, in a sense, “given.” For a commodity to be successful, it needs to be bought and sold.
LOCATION: 76

The gift economy, on the other hand, grows with each transaction, with gratitude and societal bonds being an “increase” for both the giver and recipient.
LOCATION: 78

we feel “richer” the more we give others,
LOCATION: 79

an artisan working in a gift economy but trying to survive in a market economy.
LOCATION: 87

capitalism does not reward art that is a gift.
LOCATION: 93

We intuitively reject art when the cost to make it is less than the cost to buy it.
LOCATION: 98

But as much as we know and value art—as a society—we expect our best artists to starve.
LOCATION: 101

“There are three primary ways,” he tells us, “in which modern artists have resolved the problem of their livelihood: they have taken second jobs, they have found patrons to support them, or they have managed to place the work itself on the market and pay the rent with fees and royalties.”[3] At
LOCATION: 105

must develop a more subjective feel for the two economies [gift and market] and his own rituals for both keeping them apart and bringing them together.
LOCATION: 113

be able to disengage from the work and think of it as a commodity.
LOCATION: 114

And he must, on the other hand, be able to forget all that and turn to serve his gifts on their own terms.
LOCATION: 116

we accept the victory of money over art and welcome the artist’s destruction in righteous, sulky pessimism.
LOCATION: 131

One does not rid the temple of the money-chargers by singing alone; one expels them by occupying the space they currently hold and keeping it. It is time for the faithful to reenter the market.
LOCATION: 133

Jim Henson’s idealists fight back and beat the business-heads, but when they do, they turn into capitalists.
LOCATION: 136

It may seem sad to young idealists, but this seemingly contradictory evolution is actually the solution to the artist’s problem.
LOCATION: 138

Henson was a member of the Silent Generation, Americans born in the hardship of depression and raised in war, and yet paradoxically this time produced many of the creative visionaries who would inspire the boomers to mass hippiedom.
LOCATION: 143

Having made hundreds of television ads, Henson was already a capitalist when he made “Business, Business.”
LOCATION: 150

Henson freely referred to himself as an “artist,”
LOCATION: 154

He owned a business, but his business rested on the ideas the idealists were shouting—brotherhood, joy, and love.
LOCATION: 156

Though a capitalist, he was also a staunch artist.”
LOCATION: 158

When you think of leaving an artistic legacy of lasting good, I don’t think you can aim much higher than Henson’s—the work he created is beloved by so many, twenty-three years after his death, in more than a hundred different countries.
LOCATION: 174

“Beware of artists. They mix with all classes of society and are therefore the most dangerous.”
LOCATION: 185

In 99 percent of cases, you can tell if a man on the street works in finance or acrylic—not because these are mutually exclusive professions, but because we wear our battle colors to show we have chosen a side.
LOCATION: 191

What is a human being? Complex to the point of absurdity, a whole person is both greedy and generous. It is foolish to think we can’t be both artists and entrepreneurs, especially when Henson was so wildly successful in both categories.
LOCATION: 199

Henson was “notorious for going over budget,”[13] because he made it a point to hire and retain good artists.
LOCATION: 208

When Henson joined on to the experimental PBS show Sesame Street in 1968, he was underpaid for his services
LOCATION: 212

Yet he spent his free nights in his basement, shooting stop-motion films that taught kids to
LOCATION: 214

He had all the makings of a tragic starving artist. The only difference between him and us is that he made peace with money.
LOCATION: 216

The artist who wishes neither to lose his gift nor to starve his belly reserves a protected gift-sphere in which the work is created, but once the work is made he allows himself some contact with the market.
LOCATION: 220

phase—if he is successful in the marketplace, he converts market wealth into gift wealth: he contributes his earnings to the support of his art.
LOCATION: 221

The dance involves art and money, but not at the same time.
LOCATION: 223

Hyde’s dance steps go a little something like this: Make art. Make art make money. Make money make art.
LOCATION: 225

Truly, for Jim Henson, money was a fuel that fed art.
LOCATION: 227

He viewed money as energy, the energy that makes concrete things happen out of worthy ideas. Money was not an end in itself. It could provide physical infrastructure or it could help him hire other artists and technicians to realize a nascent idea. I don’t ever recall him being the least bit concerned or afraid of money or obsessed by it, which many people are. It just wasn’t what drove him—at all.
LOCATION: 229

Maintaining a balance between art and business has always been a part of what I do. You operate with as much honesty and integrity as you can afford. Success has brought the ability to pick and choose what we do.
LOCATION: 235

sketches—becoming the most successful version of yourself.
LOCATION: 241

the first step to making money is an emotional one—to “make some peace,” as Hyde says, “with the market.”
LOCATION: 241

whatever your art, there is some business in which you participate.
LOCATION: 245

By closely examining Jim Henson’s relationship with money, we can derive a philosophy that will serve us in our own careers—no matter what they may be.
LOCATION: 253

In his office, Henson hung a “Shrine to the Almighty Dollar”—a comically-large dollar bill with a small pyre at its feet.
LOCATION: 254

The dollar meant something to Henson—it meant more art.
LOCATION: 258

what is a hero but a person upon whom to focus one’s thoughts—to imagine one’s dreams?
LOCATION: 260

LESSON 1 FIND A GOOD REASON TO SELL OUT
LOCATION: 265

Henson became a household name, and through Sesame Street toys, Henson became a millionaire. In short, merchandizing is the “secret” to Henson’s success.
LOCATION: 267

Before he became a mogul, he had to find a good reason to do so.
LOCATION: 269

One of the virtues of the second job is that Hyde says it makes it easy for artists to “mark the boundary between their art and the
LOCATION: 271

for many years Edward Hopper did commercial drafting for magazines before his real work became profitable.
LOCATION: 275

magazine money allowed him to keep painting.
LOCATION: 276

with commercials, there were drawbacks.
LOCATION: 276

some part of Henson’s content was always dictated by the sponsor.
LOCATION: 277

“It was a pleasure to get out of that world. If you’ve ever worked in commercials, it’s a world of compromise and a world of
LOCATION: 278

self-censorship—commercials were more than a compromise for Henson.
LOCATION: 279

“The whole process is really not easy on a creative
LOCATION: 281

in 1969, Jim Henson decided to stop making commercials.
LOCATION: 282

Henson no longer had the buffer of commercial pay to keep his projects funded.
LOCATION: 284

To keep funding his high-quality work, Henson needed another option to emerge, and almost like karma, one did—merchandizing.
LOCATION: 287

Like commercials, toy merchandizing offered Henson a way to be his own bankroller, and it would be better than commercials, because there would be no boss above his own creative vision; however, at first, Henson refused.
LOCATION: 290

Jim hated the idea of selling out.…
LOCATION: 299

They always wanted to do things for the right reasons.
LOCATION: 300

[T]he whole idea of merchandising made them feel like sell-outs.
LOCATION: 301

you have every child in America watching this show, and one day it will hopefully be worldwide. You’re educating kids better and more creatively than TV ever has.
LOCATION: 304

You can’t not give it to them.
LOCATION: 306

Henson did, in fact, take great pains to make sure the products that made him rich were not “shit.”
LOCATION: 307

Second, you will have full control of what’s done.
LOCATION: 309

Sesame Street’s mission was to educate poor kids.
LOCATION: 311

Henson did not want to sell kids things that were bad for them
LOCATION: 313

Henson would always control the merchandizing; it would never control him.
LOCATION: 314

“Third, if what I believe will happen with this merchandising happens[,] … you will make enough money to have artistic freedom for the rest of your life.”
LOCATION: 315

Artistic freedom. Those two words sold him … for an artist to imagine being able to do as his heart desired without asking anyone for money …
LOCATION: 317

It was the desire to be free from the market that ironically convinced Henson to become one of America’s great merchandisers.
LOCATION: 322

Henson had the veto power. He was the one in complete control of his art,
LOCATION: 330

the toys were more than commodities, that they would be art themselves,
LOCATION: 331

The reason that Sesame Street became so lucrative for Henson was copyright and trademark—intellectual property.
LOCATION: 337

Copyright is a key to making money as an artist, because it allows a work of art to be made once at great cost—making it, in a sense, a gift—and then reproduced relatively cheaply, giving back to the creator infinite profits.
LOCATION: 340

Yet, profit for art is usually a long-term prospect.
LOCATION: 351

but that is a long-term approach to value that requires a steady and separate revenue stream—to continually invest in one’s quality and to give, in the short term, more than one receives.
LOCATION: 352

“We believe that only if our books and playthings are amusing will they be purchased and used enough to have educational value.”
LOCATION: 385

The fact is, when discussing business, it’s perfectly natural to exploit resources and markets, unless of course what’s being exploited is children and their innocent love and trust in us.
LOCATION: 395

An artist can turn anything into art—even a commodity.
LOCATION: 397

“Jim’s staff did the initial design work and prototypes (rather than leaving it to the licensee’s research and development area).”[48] Henson approved every licensed product
LOCATION: 399

Art, any artist knows, is inherently affirming, wondrous, and nourishing for the creative mind.
LOCATION: 408

If art works, it speaks to you about life.
LOCATION: 410

he almost let people rip him off if it was good. When people made things that he didn’t feel were up to par, then it upset him.… [H]e wanted it to be at least complimentary.
LOCATION: 416

Jim Henson countered merchandizing’s grossness by using it as an excuse to make more art.
LOCATION: 433

And most importantly, Henson put the profits back into his art.
LOCATION: 434

As Hyde notes, it is a “necessary” phase for an artist existing in both a gift economy and a market economy: “If he is successful in the marketplace, he converts market wealth into gift wealth: he contributes his earnings to the support of his art.
LOCATION: 437

PURE ART DON’T SELL FIND A HANDLE
LOCATION: 452

he’d actually licensed a line of toys four years earlier.
LOCATION: 453

An interesting lesson came out of this foray into toys.
LOCATION: 456

These early “Muppets” were truly Henson’s passion, his art in its purest form.
LOCATION: 462

[Henson:] Yeah, all the characters in those days were abstract because that was part of the principle I was working under.…
LOCATION: 467

I still feel are slightly more pure.
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Rowlf, our dog, call him a dog, you immediately give the audience a handle. You’re assisting the audience to understand; you’re giving them a bridge
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[I]n terms of going commercial and going broad audience, you want to reach the audience as much as possible, and you need those
LOCATION: 471

the “nice thing” about pure characters is the artistic game played with the audience—closer to approaching art—and the nice thing about the handled characters is their mass market appeal—the money and ratings they can generate.
LOCATION: 474

In order for Henson to get to do what he wanted, he had to change
LOCATION: 479

without this initial “handle,” Henson could never have made The Dark Crystal or Fraggle Rock,
LOCATION: 483

Warming up his characters, what we might call “selling out,” allowed him to innovate, and he learned to accept that.
LOCATION: 484

in show business the “market” is often the “audience,” it is a blurry line between selling out and reaching many hearts with your gift.
LOCATION: 491

The market can start to shape the work. Yet, some contact with the market will not entirely destroy a work.
LOCATION: 499

all artists are affected by the market
LOCATION: 500

The Muppet Show was an art that made clear compromises to conform to the market—having
LOCATION: 502

The Muppet Show also raised the bar for what was possible on TV, by bringing more art to it than the medium required.
LOCATION: 503

THERE ARE BAD TOYS WHICH MEANS THERE MUST ALSO BE GOOD TOYS
LOCATION: 504

Henson’s great genius lay in his ability to see the humor, the beauty, the art, in everything.
LOCATION: 505

the economic model of the toy works, because the toys can be mass-produced cheaply using a copyright that was very expensive to make.
LOCATION: 514

he would not fall into the trap of creating a company that broke down into two parts—the creative personnel on one side and the business people on the other.
LOCATION: 528

To avoid that schism, he tried to hire business people who would fit comfortably into the creative family that was already in
LOCATION: 529

Henson had famously waited for Frank Oz to finish high school so that he could hire this irreplaceable puppeteering prodigy, and with this same cautious precision, he hired businesspeople he had already worked with and knew he could trust.
LOCATION: 532

Henson had to make sure that every new person could “fit in comfortably to the creative family.”
LOCATION: 535

by hiring the right people to create his toys, Henson turned a commodity into something we might call “pop art.”
LOCATION: 553

Henson loved the handmade item—he filled his home with crafts while he sold their opposite, the mass-manufactured lunchbox.
LOCATION: 557

Henson’s products often retained a glimmer of that “artsy-craftsy” feeling that made them, because he put more work into them than he had to.
LOCATION: 558

PART OF THE PROBLEM TO BE PART OF THE SOLUTION
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Henson used his merchandizing profits to make twenty more years of art—art that tried to teach a worldwide audience to live together in peace. He used it to employ hundreds of artists and to inspire millions more. One could argue the world is a little better—because he sold out.
LOCATION: 584

HOW TO ENACT YOUR SELLOUT
LOCATION: 587

We should never sell out to the extent that it would ruin our art or change our gift into an empty commodity.
LOCATION: 588

By viewing them as “creative freedom,” and then putting his effort into making them “beautiful,” Henson seemed to sell out in a way that made us love the art no less, and possibly more.
LOCATION: 589

his view of copyright wasn’t about profit; it was about protecting the work.
LOCATION: 595

Your art may not involve characters or anything merchandisable, but there may yet be some way in which mass production or mass media can benefit you.
LOCATION: 597

Copyright creates a nice loophole for artists in the law that says they must starve. If you can make a work once and profit infinitely—proportional to the amount of times the art is given—then you can beat the system.
LOCATION: 599

Regardless of what your art is, in the larger sense, there may be an option for revenue
LOCATION: 602

The trick is to be open to the possibilities.
LOCATION: 604

What would you never do for money? How could you convince yourself to do it—for art?
LOCATION: 606

However you choose to address the grossness of the problem will resemble the rest of your art
LOCATION: 607

Reconsider selling out as quite possibly buying you time later to be more pure.
LOCATION: 609

you might need a handle for the masses to grasp your idea, but once you have it, your audience will follow you into any strange and darkened corner of your imagination—into places you never thought possible.
LOCATION: 610

the market’s demand can give you the artistic freedom
LOCATION: 612

if you do “cash in” on a big wave, it is “necessary,” in Hyde’s words, to funnel the profits back into the art.
LOCATION: 614

There is always something bigger and better you want to make but just don’t have the money for.
LOCATION: 615

For myself, the switch from fiction to nonfiction is my sellout,
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I was spending hundreds of hours crafting my fiction, but the only place I managed to publish it was a very small press that didn’t pay
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I wanted the kind of work Henson had—fun, difficult, rewarding, worthwhile. I started to study his business methods,
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cartoonists—Henson’s legacy is clearly one of benevolence, art, and giving, and it is lasting.
LOCATION: 624

For me, writing a prescriptive book is a “handle” to get my ideas across.
LOCATION: 626

I could not have learned so much about business from anyone else besides Jim Henson.
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Truly, there is no one alive today who knows the way for you to become a successful artist. To find it, you’ll need to imagine it.
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It was the Sesame Street licensing bonanza that made Jim Henson rich, but that stroke of luck didn’t appear overnight.
LOCATION: 695

to get Kermit to the point in 1976 when he was incredibly marketable, it took forty years
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art is work.
LOCATION: 700

if you’re wondering why, as the song goes, you haven’t made it yet, perhaps you just haven’t earned it yet.
LOCATION: 700

As artists, we desire nothing more than the freedom to work long hours on our art.
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you need to shift that freedom into its opposite form—total self-sacrifice and servitude.
LOCATION: 702

You must give many hours to the work—hours that you do not want to give, but feel you must give.
LOCATION: 703

With a nightly show comes the kind of ball-and-chain the artist needs to evolve.
LOCATION: 746

Being locked in like this forced Henson to continually innovate, but he surely grew weary of it.
LOCATION: 747

It wasn’t just writing the scripts; designing and building the props, sets, and puppets; and recruiting performers. It wasn’t just the daily pressure to come up with new ideas. It was also the years of nurturing his imagination.
LOCATION: 759

In his spare time, he’d be in the control room trying to understand what was going on.
LOCATION: 765

This learning experience is what allowed Henson to develop his own system for performing with puppets on TV
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According to Jerry Seinfeld, the only way to learn is on stage.
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Though great art can surely be tainted by the marketplace, we must not go so far as to shut our work off from an audience.
LOCATION: 780

Does this mean the artist must conform to what people want?
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style grows alongside their reactions to it, either to become recalcitrant and stubborn or to yield and give in—depending
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Fortunately for Henson, the network didn’t ask him to rein in his weird ideas—they let him find the limit himself.
LOCATION: 789

Ultimately, this sacrifice—years of giving his life away—is what makes Henson’s characters seem human.
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It had to be learned through experience, through experimentation. By doing.
LOCATION: 808

There is something about a character that operates like a black hole—all the work you put into him stays with him.
LOCATION: 811

Practice—it can be grueling, thankless, and unceasing—but in devoting oneself to trial and error, an artist is investing in the worth of one’s name.
LOCATION: 813

Of the twenty-four hours of Henson’s day, all of them went into his art in some way,
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artist does not experience his time as leisure. It’s work, and it’s work that’s never done.
LOCATION: 817

When you eat, sleep, and breathe your art, you never get a vacation, yet Henson and Disney chose it—willingly.
LOCATION: 823

there are two types of work in the story. The shoemaker’s work resembles a factory job—there is no art in such robotic tasks—tracing patterns, cutting them out. What the elves do, on the other hand, is more like magic. They are the artists. They sew in such a unique and gifted way as to produce quality—and not everyone can do it.
LOCATION: 834

“Work is what we do by the hour,” Hyde says, “it ends at a specific
LOCATION: 840

“Labor has its own schedule. Things get done, but we often have the odd sense that we didn’t do
LOCATION: 841

Henson himself said, “[W]hen I’m working well ideas just appear.… It’s just a matter of our figuring out how to receive the
LOCATION: 844

“And labor,” Hyde notes, “because it sets its own pace, is usually accompanied by idleness, leisure, even sleep.”
LOCATION: 850

A labor, Hyde says, is “something that is often urgent but that nevertheless has its own interior rhythm, something more bound up with feeling, more interior, than work.”
LOCATION: 852

For an artist, there is nothing more fulfilling than making good art.
LOCATION: 869

Henson said, “The feeling of accomplishment is more real and satisfying than finishing a good meal or looking at one’s accumulated
LOCATION: 869

If you can practice your art enough to observe what your body does, you can learn to do it at will—with your conscious mind.
LOCATION: 873

The part of us that creates is often something we’re ashamed of. Consciously, we ignore it. Society encourages this.
LOCATION: 875

all three are necessary work for every working artist—cutting the leather, selling the shoes, and working the magic.
LOCATION: 887

“Year after year, we watched him push himself beyond what we could possibly imagine. You had to try to keep
LOCATION: 913

“It’s hard for people to understand the reason Jim worked so hard is [that] he loved
LOCATION: 915

Henson said, “Perhaps one thing that has helped me in achieving my goals is that I sincerely believe in what I do, and get pleasure from it.
LOCATION: 918

For artists, like entrepreneurs, it seems, it’s all or nothing—frequently poverty or riches—but a traditional middle-class life it’s not.
LOCATION: 956

I sincerely believe in what I do, and get pleasure from it. I feel very fortunate because I can do what I love to do.
LOCATION: 958

The thing that makes sacrifice worthwhile is that you believe in it.
LOCATION: 960

Career ambitions and life goals for Henson were one and the same.
LOCATION: 971

It is refreshing to know that even someone as driven and ambitious as Henson had his moments of self-doubt, and to know that when he did, he didn’t try to work against the doubt—he explored it.
LOCATION: 994

To have a certainty in one’s purpose is crucial, to feel that one is doing
LOCATION: 1002

COROLLARY TO LESSON 2 BE LUCKY
LOCATION: 1021

Henson had been learning to be a boss, he had been cultivating an intense work ethic, and he had developed a home-grown aesthetic.
LOCATION: 1071

Henson’s shoestring budget resulted in Kermit being fashioned out of fabric from his mother’s old
LOCATION: 1072

His work in commercials led both to a healthy workshop budget and eventually to Sesame Street,
LOCATION: 1073

Henson may not have chosen his career up until 1958, but he was able to turn burdens into strengths.
LOCATION: 1076

“Take what you got and fly with it,” Henson said.
LOCATION: 1076

look for individuals who turned burdens into advantages with a little art.
LOCATION: 1082

When used correctly, anything can be turned into music—anything can make us dance.
LOCATION: 1086

WHAT HAVE YOU ALREADY PRACTICED? PRACTICE IT MORE
LOCATION: 1092

You don’t have to be at the right place at the right time. You have to know what your time and place is good for.
LOCATION: 1097

Part of the game of art is taking what is, playing with it, and seeing what could be.
LOCATION: 1102

We are all lucky for something. The trick is in knowing how you are uniquely lucky, and in turning that gift into something others can appreciate.
LOCATION: 1112

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN LUCK (HAVE A WORKSHOP IN YOUR BASEMENT OR GARAGE)
LOCATION: 1114

Play and experimentation loosens our grip on life and allows for more chance luck to surprise us.
LOCATION: 1115

bring your work home with you, to let your work take over your life,
LOCATION: 1117

Creating a workspace in your home makes a space in your future for breakthroughs and epiphanies to exist
LOCATION: 1121

Behind Henson’s stroke of luck lies a graveyard of TV pilots that were not picked up
LOCATION: 1128

Henson had worked hard for that luck.
LOCATION: 1130

The key to your success may lie in something you already do, but do not yet see as your power,
LOCATION: 1136

If you look back at the successes you’ve had with your art, can you remember how much work they took?
LOCATION: 1145

Really observe the way you work—even the parts you are ashamed to acknowledge.
LOCATION: 1149

There is nothing worse than not working on something you believe in.
LOCATION: 1161

GIVE SOMEONE ELSE A BREAK HIRE SOMEONE
LOCATION: 1239

Sugith Varughese, said of his scripts: You feel like you were channeling something. It wasn’t coming from me, it was coming from this collective funnel of creativity that came through because of the juxtaposition of real specific people like Jerry Juhl and Jim, and I was just lucky to be in the room. And it just passed through
LOCATION: 1241

There is something about collaboration that encourages more play
LOCATION: 1245

Henson had great power, but it came from generosity. If you want a job like Henson’s, you need to give someone else a job.
LOCATION: 1249

Art is often more interesting to the audience when artists collaborate.
LOCATION: 1254

The kind of art Henson wanted to make required collaboration.
LOCATION: 1257

What we feel as an audience is that a lot of people really enjoyed working together, something we don’t get to experience very often in our own careers.
LOCATION: 1263

Through stepping back, Henson learned he could step back, because the show was bigger than just him.
LOCATION: 1294

Henson’s marriage effectively set the tone for the kind of relationship he would cultivate with his next employees—that of partnership, family, and brotherhood.
LOCATION: 1301

When Kermit sings “Getting there is half the fun, come share it with me,” it’s a basic sentiment, but one that was at the heart of the company’s philosophy.
LOCATION: 1348

It ends with the poignant line, “When all these people believe in you … maybe even you can believe in you, too.”
LOCATION: 1351

FIND YOUR PEOPLE WITH A SILLINESS AUDITION
LOCATION: 1355

You need to find the right people, people like you.
LOCATION: 1357

Reading these accounts, it almost seems like the most important thing to display at the interview was an ability to have fun while working together.
LOCATION: 1386

Working together is a crucial skill, because as Dave Goelz said, “Almost nothing in the Muppets is ever done in isolation. No one ever does anything really by themselves.”[28] Puppeteers attended script meetings, and writers watched the tapings. A songwriter and lyricist played off one another, and off the script, which sometimes took its visual cues out of the song lyrics. As Goelz said, Henson’s organization was “interdependent,”[29] just like the Rock itself.
LOCATION: 1402

LAUGHTER TENSION’S SWEETER SISTER
LOCATION: 1420

In play, there is room for everyone, because there are infinite roles to play—you can change the game to make room. The conversion of competitive tendencies into play is truly the essence of Henson’s work.
LOCATION: 1455

Henson’s relationships with fellow puppeteers is a model to follow in artistic fields where (1) tension can be channeled to serve to work, and (2) everyone’s work is in its own style.
LOCATION: 1456

A HANDSHAKE MAN NO HR PROFESSIONAL
LOCATION: 1458

separating business and creative conversations is important; it creates a sense of play that is independent from economics.
LOCATION: 1492

For artists, money is often an afterthought, because the primary goal is making something good.
LOCATION: 1494

For people who work day and night, the line between job and life is indistinguishable, and so is the line between coworker and friend.
LOCATION: 1510

ADDENDUM TO LESSON 3 WHY PEOPLE WORK FOR YOU
LOCATION: 1512

what every artist wants—a chance to be loved for the hard work that only he can do. To be rewarded for doing one’s art. Not just a cheap, profitable derivative of one’s art, but the real thing—the whole thing—what he was born to do, and do masterfully.
LOCATION: 1527

Artists work for artists for good reason. It is because they are “passionate,” in Goelz’s words, about art; they want to “become” something, in Prell’s words; to have a “meaningful career” in Bailey’s.
LOCATION: 1552

QUALIFICATION TO ADDENDUM NOT EVERYONE WANTS TO WORK FOR YOU
LOCATION: 1556

SIDEBAR ON FREELANCERS
LOCATION: 1573

HERE’S ANOTHER OPTION YOU CAN BE A HENSON OR YOU CAN BE A SPINNEY
LOCATION: 1623

If one is too “precious” about one’s art, one can’t leverage its power as well to the benefit and survival of that art.
LOCATION: 1659

It may be better to be a Spinney. It’s harder to be a Henson.
LOCATION: 1663

You don’t have to be a Henson. But if you’re going to be a Spinney, you need to find a Henson.
LOCATION: 1666

HOW TO START A SNOWBALL
LOCATION: 1671

a great deal of his success came not from him alone but from the snowballing of a lot of creative artists working together.
LOCATION: 1673

when you pay another artist to help you, you give them more than the check; you give them the message that good art is worth paying for.
LOCATION: 1681

Please don’t fall into the trap of becoming professional. Be yourself.
LOCATION: 1688

To him, business was a handshake—an acknowledgment that both parties were on the same page.
LOCATION: 1690

When you find good collaborators, you will do your darnedest to keep them around.
LOCATION: 1691

the first step is very simple: reach out to other artists.
LOCATION: 1694

Imagine yourself as a “fearless leader” of artists, leaving a legacy like his.
LOCATION: 1695

When the right people appear in your life, they will have their own reasons for joining you.
LOCATION: 1699

you, for whatever reason, can help them achieve their dreams.
LOCATION: 1700

Collaboration with other artists lightens the load for you. You don’t have to do it all by yourself. What do you dream of?
LOCATION: 1702

MAKE COMMERCIALS FOR YOU HIJACK THE AD
LOCATION: 1777

Henson’s art relied on keeping a core group of people together.
LOCATION: 1777

Without financial incentive, collaborators tend to move away, get families, get other jobs—ones that do pay.
LOCATION: 1778

Art alone doesn’t usually pay the bills, so what is an artist to do? Go where the money is.
LOCATION: 1779

Effectively, making TV commercials was Henson’s second job to finance the rest of his artistic projects.
LOCATION: 1781

If you’ve ever worked in commercials, it’s a world of compromise
LOCATION: 1787

Henson’s Vonnegutian so-it-goes signoff implies he was happy to leave his past—the frustration of commercial work—in the past. But commercials, as they say, paid the bills.
LOCATION: 1794

Hopper’s work for magazines was a response to a market demand, and the results are commercial art.
LOCATION: 1803

Hopper’s work for magazines should be considered not a part of his art at all but a second job taken to support his true
LOCATION: 1804

Hopper’s career was split in two,
LOCATION: 1805

calls a “protected gift sphere” for himself, a space for his work to grow on its own terms, free from market demand.
LOCATION: 1806

Commercials protected Henson’s art because they allowed him to do projects based on their merit, not for the money, until, of course, one came along that made its own money—the surprise hit Sesame Street.
LOCATION: 1818

It seems advisable, then, for an ambitious artist to take on a second job like Henson did, in commercials.
LOCATION: 1820

Commercials can be good money, but they are not to be undertaken lightly by artists.
LOCATION: 1823

Television and its ads are a delusional system, and it takes a special kind of mindset to participate in them without losing your way as an artist.
LOCATION: 1832

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS IN BED WITH BAD COMPANY
LOCATION: 1834

We think of Henson as artsy-craftsy, philanthropic, and slightly revolutionary, so it is strange to think of him making commercials for gasoline, banks, or junk food in good conscience. Part of the problem with ads is that when you endorse a for-profit business, you never really know who you’re in bed with.
LOCATION: 1835

But effectively, when you make commercials, you are often helping a for-profit company with a good deal of money, and often the reason that company has so much money is due to exploitation and disregard for humanity.
LOCATION: 1846

Henson seemed to be somewhat selective in the kinds of companies he worked for, and at the time, we perhaps didn’t know how harmful oil dependence or factory farming could be.
LOCATION: 1848

servers. In the arms race of office technology, the company these new tools helped most was IBM. Henson did even more for the growing technology company, creating entertainment for the salesmen themselves to watch for inspiration.
LOCATION: 1858

INTO THE LIAR’S DEN HOW HENSON COULD BRING HIMSELF TO PROMOTE THIS JUNK
LOCATION: 1868

Though it would seem like a hassle to have to read copy about juicy chicken wings, Henson created skits around these lines, often tongue-in-cheek.
LOCATION: 1877

There is a fun, ironic quality to it, almost like it is a spoof of the ad copy itself.
LOCATION: 1884

Henson was co-opting the sponsor spot and using it as his own airtime. If given the choice to cede some of your precious five minutes to a commercial sponsor or to use that time for an extra skit, it’s easy to see why an artist might choose to do promos.
LOCATION: 1884

It seems only natural, then, that upon seeing these Esskay promos, other companies would start to ask Henson to have his puppets spoof their chicken, their coffee, their photocopiers, and so on. A great commercial advertiser, it seems, was born accidentally.
LOCATION: 1888

These ads are
LOCATION: 1904

Yet Henson did have a problem with commercials.
LOCATION: 1905

According to Falk, Henson made “Flapsole Sneakers” to “play around.”[34] But more than that, the fake ad displays Henson’s obvious disdain for, and discomfort with, the job he was paid to do. “Flapsole Sneakers” is a parody of opportunist advertising, of selling unrealistic desires, and its complicit knowledge that products are not what they seem. At the end, it seems to say, none of these products will ever be enough, so when you’ve bought them all, we’ll sell you imaginary financial “products,” which, of course, will make the fund managers rich. At its core, advertising is a game of con-artistry. At its most honest, it tells you where you can throw away your money on fleeting pleasure.
LOCATION: 1910

Ads trick us, making us think they’re our friend, when they’re really working for someone with interests that conflict with
LOCATION: 1916

And here is how Henson the artist managed to survive in the world of commercials for so long. Henson didn’t just parody ads in this for-fun reel. He parodied ads in every one of his for-real commercials.
LOCATION: 1919

PARODY THE AD WHILE STILL PLAYING THE GAME
LOCATION: 1923

He was … making fun of Madison Avenue and the way things were sold, and yet he was very successful at it. He was much loved by the Madison Avenue executives. Maybe having it come from a puppet character made it
LOCATION: 1925

“Typically, Jim was making fun of the capitalistic ambitions of the people that hired
LOCATION: 1931

And for some reason, when working with puppets, negative emotions seem to be converted into play—into laughter.
LOCATION: 1947

Henson’s strategy seemed to imply that people value laughter more than basically anything else—more, we see here, than their own pride.
LOCATION: 1948

It shows them by making the client laugh. If Henson can make the client laugh, they know he can make their audiences laugh.
LOCATION: 1950

Henson’s ads functioned more like public service spots, alerting the viewer to the motives and tricks of Madison Avenue. It was education, teaching anti-ad-literacy.
LOCATION: 1964

AD VS. ART AD AS ART
LOCATION: 1968

Many of the most famous Muppets were created for ad campaigns: Big Bird is really a variation of a seven foot dragon created by Henson for La Choy commercials; Cookie Monster was a pitchman for Frito Lay; Grover was used in promotional films for IBM.
LOCATION: 1974

Henson did retool his commercial characters in service of education, yet it would be quite wrong to think of Henson as an advertiser-turned-artist. He didn’t get his start doing ads. He got his start doing puppets, and that just so happened to lead him into ads and education, not because he chose those worlds, but because they chose him.
LOCATION: 1976

Jim Henson’s company, called Muppets Incorporated at the time,[50] was not a subsidiary of any advertising company. It was both its own advertising company and its own production company.
LOCATION: 1988

What made Henson different from the Mad Men was that Henson’s enthusiasm in his ads came from an honest belief that he had something to offer viewers.
LOCATION: 1999

Henson pitched his commercials the same way a playwright would pitch his play to a theater—giving it everything to get to make his art.
LOCATION: 2001

That is because a person who makes art and also sells art thinks in a very uncommon way.
LOCATION: 2012

If you want to go from being an artist with a day job to being an artist whose work pays for itself, exposure is the key.
LOCATION: 2013

With enough exposure, an artist can find his market, or perhaps create it. Henson’s commercials were, in a sense, a lot of free exposure. Shifting the lens a bit, they were an ad for his own work.
LOCATION: 2014

There is a simple joy in humanity that runs through all Henson’s projects. The knowing positivity of Henson’s Muppets is just as strong in the ads as it is in The Muppet Movie.
LOCATION: 2017

UNCOMMON ADMAKING WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE
LOCATION: 2027

We hate ads because they are false, because they lie to us.
LOCATION: 2028

To clear up confusion, Henson paid for this ad, giving Brillstein’s start-up some much-needed publicity. When you see ads like this one in the newspaper
LOCATION: 2036

It changes the way you think of advertising. It becomes less like a scam and more like communicating something important to a large number of people.
LOCATION: 2038

Although commercial work may have given Henson some of his ten thousand hours of puppetry, eventually day jobs tend to drain energy away from one’s art. In 1969, Henson quit the ad game, and his move suggests that in the long run, it is a game an artist really can’t win.
LOCATION: 2066

STOP AS SOON AS YOU CAN SAY NO TO ADS WHEN YOU CAN AFFORD TO
LOCATION: 2068

Jim’s rule was simple: Don’t sell [the copyrights to]
LOCATION: 2077

Even early on, when he arguably needed it most, Henson refused some money. If inflation calculators can be trusted, that would look more like $400,000 today.
LOCATION: 2078

Sesame Street was born of 1960s idealism, and it was revolutionary. Henson signed on to the project before anyone knew that Sesame Street would be a success, because he believed it had a mission worth supporting.
LOCATION: 2084

Sesame Workshop’s mission is “to use the educational power of media to help children everywhere reach their highest
LOCATION: 2086

With Sesame Street came a firm moral reason for Henson to quit his second job.
LOCATION: 2092

Henson couldn’t make commercials and Sesame Street, because he was channeling the power of advertising now for good.
LOCATION: 2100

This is Gladwell’s point when he says Sesame Street grew out of commercials. The creator-producer of Sesame Street, Joan Ganz Cooney, explained in her research: Parents report that their children learn to recite all sorts of advertising slogans, read product names on the screen (and, more remarkably, elsewhere) and to sing commercial
LOCATION: 2103

Sesame Street, on purpose, used what was already transfixing young minds to their TVs. Michael Davis put it best: If the neurotransmitters in their little brains could snap, crackle, and pop for a cereal commercial, couldn’t similar electrical activity be duplicated by teaching children the concepts of over, around, under, and through
LOCATION: 2106

The segments on Sesame Street were ads—ads for literacy, good behavior, number skills, peace, and love.
LOCATION: 2110

If Henson were to continue making commercials, it would be damaging to his credibility as an educator.
LOCATION: 2111

Kermit, the frog, is a Muppet I made over ten years ago and have used on many network shows and commercials. For the past ten or twelve years, approximately half my income has been derived from producing Muppet commercials.… However, since the advent of Sesame Street, and my own interest and concern for children’s television (I am an enthusiastic member of Action for Children’s Television), I have become a great deal more selective, and have turned down many lucrative offers that seemed to be trying to capitalize on Sesame Street.… The Children’s Television Workshop is a very dedicated group of people who function with the highest sense of integrity. To mistakenly attribute a motive of exploitation to these people is not only insulting but potentially quite damaging to the job they are doing. As for myself, I don’t intend to leave commercial television. This is where the Muppets and I have worked for many years, and it is the income from commercial TV that makes my participation in educational TV possible. What I will try to do is what I have tried to do on Sesame Street this season, that is, to work
LOCATION: 2128

Yet, for Henson, compromise had actually led him to integrity. In his own words, “it is the income from commercial TV that makes my participation in educational TV possible.”
LOCATION: 2141

When The Muppet Show aired in 1975, Henson could have used the characters—who were in no way educational—in commercials, yet he did so only sparingly. At that point, his business generated enough money on its own that commercials were not necessary, and Henson could afford to be choosy. Throughout the seventies and eighties, Henson only made a handful of commercials, according to archivist Falk, “where he felt the situation and product was particularly
LOCATION: 2142

Henson saw commercials for what they are—tools. And tools are neither good nor bad; it’s what you make that is.
LOCATION: 2156

A Muppet protagonist would rather die than be the puppet of an unjust cause.
LOCATION: 2160

Henson made art make money and then made money make art.
LOCATION: 2166

And though it was right for Henson to quit ads when he did, they were an important step along the way.
LOCATION: 2166

THE ONLY WAY TO STOP IS TO (FIRST) START RETHINKING THE AD
LOCATION: 2167

Movies, by nature, are less gift than TV. With TV, fans don’t buy a show—advertisers do.
LOCATION: 2179

Moviegoers don’t get a free lunch. They get the lunch they’ve paid for.
LOCATION: 2180

Ads can be exploitative and obnoxious, but if you’re smart enough to ignore them
LOCATION: 2187

lives—what ads really do is facilitate the consumption of free art.
LOCATION: 2188

Henson’s characters were also a gift—ads’ gift to everyone.
LOCATION: 2200

But ads are themselves tools—exposure—that can be used for various purposes, including good ones.
LOCATION: 2202

Yes, Henson ultimately had to refuse commercials to protect Sesame Street. But without Henson’s participation in commercials, there would be no Sesame Street to protect.
LOCATION: 2207

HOW TO HIJACK YOUR DAY JOB
LOCATION: 2208

Where is the money right now? Where are the thieves? Where is the most potential to impress people with a little art? Where might you come in?
LOCATION: 2229

Refuse anything that is not consistent with your vision. Make money with ads, by all means, but if you do go into advertising, hijack the ad.
LOCATION: 2230

Reserve hours or whole days that are just for art. Don’t let your day job take over your life simply because it has a more immediate payoff.
LOCATION: 2235

Hijack commercials and commercialism. Use it to create ads for you. For your continued creativity. For you to get to keep making art.
LOCATION: 2238

GROUPS AND OUTSIDERS INVITE THE OUTSIDE IN
LOCATION: 2311

The key for those of us who would follow in Henson’s footsteps is not simply how to enter business. It is how to conceptually rethink the relationship between ourselves, our group of likeminded people, and those outside that group.
LOCATION: 2313

Henson didn’t assimilate to advertising culture,
LOCATION: 2319

He wanted them to join him.
LOCATION: 2320

Your world is limitless. If you don’t see eye to eye with someone, invite them into your world.
LOCATION: 2322

This idea that “time just stopped” would feel familiar to artists who often lose track of time when they work.
LOCATION: 2341

Henson did not want to be stuck working for just one group of people.
LOCATION: 2349

Henson believed that puppetry could help the world overcome cultural conflicts.
LOCATION: 2381

he wasn’t deluded by the thinking of any particular group of people.
LOCATION: 2392

The laughter that his characters inspired was able to break down barriers, proving that even queens, presidents, and all other manner of Pooh-bahs are just people, and their humanity is evident when they share a moment in laughter.
LOCATION: 2399

Many artists today refuse to aim for a broad audience, because they feel it will water down the quality of their work.
LOCATION: 2431

If we are looking for a way to become more successful, more Hensonlike in our own careers and lives, we might start by trying to see beyond our own culture.
LOCATION: 2453

THE PARADOX OF OUTSIDES AND INSIDES
LOCATION: 2458

a recipe for a Hensonlike skit is to put two different worldviews together, and to let the ensuing conflicts turn into comedy.
LOCATION: 2463

Henson seemed to be constantly turning over this problem—the paradox of outsides and insides—in his work. Each of us can see only so much of the world, and others see a different chunk than we do.
LOCATION: 2465

This inclusion/exclusion feeling holds us back.
LOCATION: 2468

if you want to stop war in the world, well how do you do that? Well, it’s about conflict resolution.
LOCATION: 2471

The paradox of outsides and insides seems to show up thematically in Henson’s work, and always with a sort of lighthearted positivity.
LOCATION: 2485

Henson believed there was a way out of society’s perpetual conflicts.
LOCATION: 2486

ADULTHOOD IS ANOTHER CULT
LOCATION: 2489

By seeing the good people inside all of us, Henson treated his audience as innocents.
LOCATION: 2492

Children, it should be noted, exist almost 100 percent in the gift economy.
LOCATION: 2493

Someone once said that all children are artists, but adulthood avails us of this habit.
LOCATION: 2496

Uniting adults is a very wise thing for a self-supporting adult to do. Trying to be edgy and hard as so many “serious” artists do prevents them from reaping the benefits of a truly universal audience.
LOCATION: 2518

In exposing that everyone, deep down, is childish—is meek, innocent, and goofy, and has a sense of wonder and a capacity for joy—Henson’s Muppet Show, when it finally received funding from London’s ITC, broke down the barrier between adulthood and childhood.
LOCATION: 2519

Universality is rare, which is often why it is misjudged as simplistic or watered down—things that are much more common.
LOCATION: 2558

Rarity in business is quite advantageous—it means there will be less competition for your profits.
LOCATION: 2560

MAKE A JERK LAUGH WHY PUPPETS CAN SAY WHAT WE CAN’T
LOCATION: 2566

Karen Falk wrote that the Meeting Films were designed to counteract “the stupor of technical language and
LOCATION: 2574

The scenario is ridiculous, but it discloses a fundamental paradox of business ethics. How do you run a business with honor, ethics, and integrity when you’re competing to out-sell, under-sell, and ideally obliterate the competition?
LOCATION: 2577

Puppetry is an art that shows the world to itself, shows it how it moves, and makes that movement (which is terrifying, dangerous, and larger than any of us) small, nonthreatening, and funny.
LOCATION: 2581

puppets are used to speak true feelings.
LOCATION: 2583

With puppets you can deal with subjects in a way that isn’t possible with
LOCATION: 2584

There is an interesting effect when people perform with the Muppets or any puppet—we can’t help but react positively towards them.
LOCATION: 2585

There is something about a small being that is harmless and almost irresistibly lovable.
LOCATION: 2593

Puppets can do what people can’t; they can show a jerk how he’s funny, how he’s human. It is an example of inviting the outside in.
LOCATION: 2599

Puppeteer Dave Goelz said: There’s a philosophy I think Jim started out with—that people are basically good, life is to be enjoyed, take care of other people, there’s enough for everybody.
LOCATION: 2611

Henson didn’t see movie tickets as a scarcity, but rather an abundance, infinitely renewable.
LOCATION: 2626

For Henson, parody was the gift that could bring disparate groups together.
LOCATION: 2634

In Henson’s worldview, the villains are always given a gift in the attempt to invite them into the Muppets’ way of thinking.
LOCATION: 2645

“Most of us—certainly Jerry and I and I think Jim and Jocelyn—we really didn’t believe in the idea of good and evil as I think sometimes it’s handled in different shows, and the conflicts in the show are usually because of people’s misunderstanding—conflicts of interest rather than one character is good and one character is bad. We just didn’t think that way about the
LOCATION: 2646

The Muppet universe is one of inclusion, with striking echoes of Hyde’s book.
LOCATION: 2661

The Gift,
LOCATION: 2663

In order to turn a stranger into a friend, a gift is given.
LOCATION: 2666

adult conflicts stem from the outside-inside paradox,
LOCATION: 2667

could actually be resolved through the giving of a gift.
LOCATION: 2667

Henson once said, “I try hard not to judge
LOCATION: 2673

the kind of parody Henson gave people who were different from him was the kind of mirror that does not lie, but offers a chance to join “us.”
LOCATION: 2674

successful people in this world who, like Henson, achieve universality, are almost always those who truly want to—who want to talk to everybody and bring everyone together.
LOCATION: 2679

So how will you invite them in? Start by noticing the uniqueness of your enemies.
LOCATION: 2765

Study these people, and look for ways in which they are really not all that different from you.
LOCATION: 2767

Never forget that you’re more than any one group.
LOCATION: 2777

Even though we all stick to our little cults, try to see yourself from the outside and to speak from that wisdom.
LOCATION: 2778

If you’ve chosen a life of art, well then, that’s the only boundary you can’t transcend.
LOCATION: 2779

ALWAYS INNOVATE ON TECHNOLOGY AND ART
LOCATION: 2851

The emerging technology of Disney’s day was film,
LOCATION: 2860

Television was where Henson developed his art,
LOCATION: 2865

It is striking that Disney, Henson, and Catmull each used a technology that emerged around the time of his birth and matured at the same time he did—around twenty—when he began toying with it.
LOCATION: 2879

It seems like a pretty good formula for artistic and financial success.
LOCATION: 2881

QUALITY IS NOT PERFECTION
LOCATION: 2887

Henson’s work, which while lifelike, was not realistic. It sought to represent, to suggest reality, but not to copy it.
LOCATION: 2894

For The Dark Crystal, Henson’s artists created new languages, new species, a new map, new plants, new cultures with their own new folk art traditions. In short: a new reality.
LOCATION: 2904

Henson’s work always seemed to delight in how unreal objects
LOCATION: 2906

Crystal—could suggest reality.
LOCATION: 2907

Henson was not a perfectionist in this sense, because his version of “quality” required not just his own creativity, but the creativity of those around him.
LOCATION: 2914

Henson’s conception of “quality” was such that it allowed for others to co-create his worlds, which meant that he did not know in advance what those worlds would look like.
LOCATION: 2917

Henson cared a great deal for quality, but that was defined as the best each person could do, and when the voices came together in harmony, in an organic—but not random—creation, the outcomes of his projects must have been a constant surprise to him.
LOCATION: 2919

Henson knew that allowing others to truly create—not to blindly recreate his ideas but to add to them and imagine their own—would make his projects better than anything he could have imagined alone.
LOCATION: 2923

According to Jerry Nelson: If he could see it happening in his mind’s eye and knew that it would work, he would dog it until it worked.… We always wanted to give Jim exactly what he was looking for. We didn’t always know what that was, but we were willing to try until we found
LOCATION: 2931

Henson was like a perfectionist at times, because he took the time to get something right.
LOCATION: 2936

When asked why Henson made movies, Frank Oz once said: Jim didn’t think of it in hit terms. He got to have control and play. And create whatever he wanted; and that was a joy, and he loved it. He always pushed the envelope. He just loved breaking barriers. He just loved breaking
LOCATION: 2948

Oz repeated it twice for emphasis. Henson just loved breaking barriers. It wasn’t about creating the most perfect example of a thing—because there is no surprise in that. For Henson, it seemed to be about the surprise. Doing something truly new.
LOCATION: 2951

Jim liked to change things around on the show to keep it new. And he liked to change the look of the show,
LOCATION: 2955

In fact, Jim Henson was continually changing small things as well as the overarching style of his work.
LOCATION: 2957

Innovation requires experimentation. But this leads us to a hard reality: playing with your medium costs an enormous amount of money.
LOCATION: 2970

Arts. Everyone in the sciences and many people in industry understand the value of R&D, but in the Arts, spending money on “experimentation” or on something that has no concrete “end user” in sight is often considered wasteful, when it’s absolutely essential to innovation in the arts (just as it is in the sciences or in industry). On a deep artistic level, Jim trusted the process of creating art and he had the economic means (derived from other artistic efforts) to support that
LOCATION: 2973

THE (FINANCIAL) TROUBLE WITH QUALITY IT’S PROFIT-LESS
LOCATION: 2980

Innovation is expensive. The way to get it—experimentation—tends to cost more than it has to, making it a kind of gift. But giving gifts, as Lewis Hyde illustrated, does not make artists rich and seldom makes them break even.
LOCATION: 2981

According to Time it was “listed on the books as making no profit, in part because Henson keeps putting money back into the program.… ‘The long-range profit for this show is down the road, when it’s syndicated and sold to the stations,’ says Henson.
LOCATION: 2985

Just as toy sales made Henson’s gift of Sesame Street possible, they allowed The Muppet Show to be profitable, even while making no profit.
LOCATION: 2990

This is how thinking long-term can turn an unprofitable business model profitable.
LOCATION: 2996

Its investor was repaid with toy sales, and then, years later … they hoped its quality would lead to an increase in value.
LOCATION: 2997

work. Profitwise, you’ll never get ahead. However, if you are an innovator who absolutely loves what you do, this is actually the most ideal, satisfying, and self-sustaining business model you can adopt.
LOCATION: 3003

Making something with quality requires a different business model. Innovation requires patience—years with zero dollars on the books, a separate revenue stream if possible, and very often investment of one’s own money.
LOCATION: 3012

one thing the venture capitalists forget is that when you blaze a trail with (expensive) quality, you are unlikely to have much competition.
LOCATION: 3026

One reason the show has not been copied the way everything successful in television is copied, is that it’s so expensive to produce. The Muppet Show has set such a high standard for this kind of work that a cheap version of it would just be
LOCATION: 3028

This same effect is noted with Disney and Pixar. Their quality came from an expense too great for any sane business to undertake.
LOCATION: 3030

Borrow-and-promise had been Disney’s business strategy from the very beginning.
LOCATION: 3037

For innovative companies, it is not surprising to see periods of money-sucking while a masterpiece is in development.
LOCATION: 3042

To get funding, Henson had to convince Grade to share his long patience. Grade was once an artist himself—a dancer—turned mogul. Compared to Disney, Jim Henson started out with more capital of his own—profits from commercials and then Sesame Street toy sales—but in order to make a primetime puppet show and then a full-length puppet movie, Henson needed angel funding from Lord Grade.
LOCATION: 3048

While artistic businesses can get going to a good financial clip, they require more and more funding as time goes on, and bigger and better projects.
LOCATION: 3059

Each of the paths I have described is a way of getting by, not a way of getting rich.… No matter how the artist chooses, or is forced, to resolve the problem of his livelihood, he is likely to be
LOCATION: 3062

In the final accounting, Hyde seems to say, art will always cost more than it makes. And unlike the investor, it seems the artist can’t ever stop creating, take his profits, and live on vacation for the rest of his life. Yet, Henson’s career shows us that while he was alive and working, an artist—while not technically profiting—can thrive when capital is flowing.
LOCATION: 3064

There seems to be some sleight-of-hand involved in making art pay, almost like the creation of a market bubble whereby the value of your work increases consistently over time because of people’s belief in it. It’s the difference between real dollars and “Disney dollars.”
LOCATION: 3073

Companies like Pixar, Henson, and Disney built their reputation based on quality that they had to borrow to pay for.
LOCATION: 3075

But the value of the reputation demands even greater expenses, and so the bubble grows only as long as there are passionate artists working at its behest.
LOCATION: 3077

cases, Henson didn’t earn money based on the show itself; he earned money after the shows were made—almost karmically because it would have been hard to predict at the time.
LOCATION: 3079

If a show is cheap, it’s not worth watching once, but if it is quality, it can be rewatched, sold, and rented again and again.
LOCATION: 3082

WHAT WAS SO INNOVATIVE ABOUT SESAME STREET? EVERYTHING
LOCATION: 3085

One of the most innovative works in Henson’s career was Sesame Street, a show many of us take for granted.
LOCATION: 3086

Sesame Street was innovative. The never-before, the what-if, the why-not, Sesame Street was more experimental than anything else Henson had done in the sixties, and that was saying a lot.
LOCATION: 3094

Today Sesame Street is an American institution, the longest-running children’s show in history. In order to be part of this moment in history, Henson relaxed his stance against making kids’ TV, and he didn’t negotiate for a big salary.
LOCATION: 3097

Henson clearly did this work not expecting profit.
LOCATION: 3107

But I think any artist will agree: getting to do a project worth doing is actually a very good deal.
LOCATION: 3107

“Never before had anyone assembled an A-list of advisers to develop a series with stated educational norms and objectives. Never before had anyone viewed a show as a living laboratory, where results would be vigorously and continually tested.”
LOCATION: 3110

Innovation is not the easy path. It’s not the road to short-term financial profit. It’s the never-before. The miracle of creation. The first.
LOCATION: 3112

When you’re working on the never-before, your employees feel exhilarated and invested in their work, and so do you. Everyone does their best, and in that sense, it is of quality. If you create quality, you create value.
LOCATION: 3114

Innovation is not just about using the latest tools; it’s an itchy temperament that is always looking to surprise itself.
LOCATION: 3117

Innovation is experimenting, seeing what is possible, using whatever is at hand.
LOCATION: 3125

TO REMEMBER IS TO MISREMEMBER, THAT IS, TO IMAGINE CHANGE THE PAST
LOCATION: 3126

When we praise Henson with words like “imaginative,” “creative,” “original,” and “innovative,” we are misrepresenting what it actually means to do something new. Creation does not resemble the fiat “Let there be light” out of darkness.
LOCATION: 3127

“Creating,” for artists, is then a process of making incremental changes to the familiar in order to let us see—to learn—the new.
LOCATION: 3130

Copyright lawyers have conditioned us to think that artists create something out of nothing and then retain full, exclusive rights to that something.
LOCATION: 3142

But the truth is that all artists borrow from the work around them, which often contains someone else’s tweaks.
LOCATION: 3143

Today, companies like Disney have lobbied for copyright to include the author’s lifetime plus seventy years. For that reason, smart artists tend to tweak the uncopyrightable—works like Shakespeare and the Bible that are so old their copyrights have clearly expired—or tropes from the never-copyrighted: folk tales, fairy tales, and legends.
LOCATION: 3151

Folklore allows an artist to play with what’s there without getting sued.
LOCATION: 3156

Doing a new take on an old tale is something Henson did throughout his career, from Hey, Cinderella! to The Storyteller’s “Sapsorrow,” from “The Frog Prince” to “Hans My Hedgehog.”
LOCATION: 3167

By copying, the flaws in our copy often alert us to the skills that are uniquely ours.
LOCATION: 3174

Like dreaming, art reassembles the familiar into something new. It is in the misremembering or the reimagining that the actual “creation” occurs.
LOCATION: 3174

REIMAGINING TELEVISION BECOME BOTH PERFORMER AND AUDIENCE
LOCATION: 3176

We think of originators as sui generis bootstrappers, blazing their own path. A lack of education can be a boon, forcing an artist to make it up as he goes along.
LOCATION: 3181

The ventriloquist is out there facing the audience. The puppeteer works below. In that way, on television, I can watch the monitor and see how my own performance is going. No actor can do that. It’s an eerie feeling but a great one because you become both performer and
LOCATION: 3197

Henson says “you become both performer and audience,” he is implying that though you yourself are moving your hand, you might be surprised by what you see on screen, being from a different perspective than your own. For this reason, watching the Muppet performers backstage has the funny look to it of dancing while being tethered by the constant eye contact with a TV monitor.
LOCATION: 3202

What this does for the performer is to allow him to become a director of the scene—to position his character in the frame in a deliberate way—and to use the subtlest of head tilts to convey emotion.
LOCATION: 3206

It’s easy to miss how incredible this invention was. Adding a screen into the equation is key. It means the puppeteer is actually performing gestures for himself to delight in. The real innovation is in using TV to watch yourself.
LOCATION: 3212

Henson learned a little bit from many people, but avoided being overly influenced.
LOCATION: 3229

An eternal pluralist, Henson seemed more influenced by artists working for Disney than by the man himself.
LOCATION: 3236

Many of the things I’ve done in my life have basically been self-taught … if you learn too much of what others have done, you may tend to take the same direction as everybody
LOCATION: 3243

Perhaps the way around the anxiety of influence is to combine as many good things as possible into your style. You cannot help but draw on the past if you wish to innovate.
LOCATION: 3245

All of them invented new technology, yet none of them did so for the sake of technology; they did it for the sake of art. They invented a technology that would help them achieve their narrative needs. They were working on art first.
LOCATION: 3254

For artist-entrepreneurs, tech—when it is innovative—grows in tandem with the needs of the artist. Tech follows ideas.
LOCATION: 3256

HOW TO USE NEW MEDIA WITHOUT LOOKING LIKE A CHUMP
LOCATION: 3257

More than any other genre, futurism dates itself quickly.
LOCATION: 3263

it’s not about the tech you use, but in how you use it.
LOCATION: 3288

Technology lives and dies by its people.
LOCATION: 3292

Eisner’s mistake was that it wasn’t the tech that made Toy Story great—it was the people who could use tech to suit their artistic goal.
LOCATION: 3295

If Disney truly wanted to compete with Pixar, they should have increased funding to their hand-drawn animation studio. But by fetishizing the effects of innovators, Disney defunded innovation.
LOCATION: 3296

it is more important to find good people than to find good ideas.
LOCATION: 3299

All technology is a mechanical embodiment of someone’s dream.
LOCATION: 3303

The machine can be destroyed, taken apart, and used to create something new, but the voice of the inventor is what endures.
LOCATION: 3303

Although Henson loved “to jump into the middle of new technology,” he jumped in to experiment, to play, not to perfect.
LOCATION: 3323

Even Pixar, which has not been without its “repetitive stress injuries,”[76] is run with the philosophy that “[t]echnology inspires art, and art challenges the technology.”
LOCATION: 3326

THE SCHOOL OF FAILURE THE ONLY WAY TO LEARN WITHOUT COPYING
LOCATION: 3384

While expressions can be copyrighted, no one can own an idea. It was more like a professional courtesy. Innovation tends to lead to differentiation, which is good for the whole guild. It makes room for everyone.
LOCATION: 3387

I had never worked with puppets when I was a kid, and even when I began on television, I really didn’t know what I was doing. I’m sure that this was a good thing, because I learned as I tackled each new
LOCATION: 3390

The best way to educate yourself is not necessarily to enroll in school, but to learn by doing, learn by trying, and often learn by failing.
LOCATION: 3399

Many careers start with a library book, because self-directed learning is the kind that really sticks.
LOCATION: 3409

Business school only hedges you against failure by delaying the inevitable.
LOCATION: 3413

HOW TO INNOVATE FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE
LOCATION: 3416

It is the uncommon entrepreneur who can make her own market. Though she may be unready at first, trying and failing is the only way to learn. To be uncommon, avoid being overly influenced by what has come before. Use your influences promiscuously—appreciating what is good about each one.
LOCATION: 3417

Do not fetishize a technology just because it is new. Use whatever works well.
LOCATION: 3419

Quality is asking for one more take, getting everyone to focus and work well together, helping others to co-create and achieve their own personal best.
LOCATION: 3426

Pay attention to the emerging technology of your time, because it will become the newest ingredient to your mix.
LOCATION: 3427

Be on the lookout for all that is uncopyrighted, or uncopyrightable. Folk tales, well-worn comedy set-ups, and very old literature.
LOCATION: 3430

when you try to copy your heroes, do it as a tool for self-exploration. Notice the flaws in the copy. They are uniquely yours, and they may not be flaws at all.
LOCATION: 3431

Think of innovation not simply as doing something new, but as doing something amazing.
LOCATION: 3433

Copyright is merely a legal restatement of the artist’s creed to not copy one another. Think not about how to register your work, but rather how to use the power of innovation to make people trust your name, which is naturally your trademark and no one else’s.
LOCATION: 3434

Notice how technology plays into your work, because we cannot help but be affected by it.
LOCATION: 3440

I still marvel at the old tech that still works like magic: pen and paper.
LOCATION: 3445

Continue to invest in your own R&D, to innovating your art with technology old and new. Henson didn’t wait for a network to fund him; he put his own money into the development of his projects. Innovation costs a lot—not because of technology but because of man-hours. And yet, even if your work doesn’t earn you profit for the time being, its quality is what can earn money down the road—sometimes years later.
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As new technologies are being developed faster than ever, it makes sense to trust that if you make something of quality, it could increase in value.
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As an artist, you probably aren’t thinking of an endgame in which you get to quit art and just enjoy life. And so, the ever-increasing cost of quality should not be depressing to you as long as you can find a way to get money to flow long enough for you to make your quality projects.
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The worth of your company—the final tally—isn’t your ultimate goal. It’s the ability to keep making great art.
LOCATION: 3458

Because in order to leave a lasting legacy, you don’t want to die with the most money in your account; you want to leave behind pieces of work that feel as alive as you once were.
LOCATION: 3460

The work environment for Henson’s projects was one in which artists really cared about what they were doing, and the amazement audiences feel correlates directly to the glee felt by Henson and the people who worked with him.
LOCATION: 3461

BRING TOGETHER A TRIAD SEPARATION OF ROLES
LOCATION: 3546

The real triumvirate that we see at Henson, Disney, and even Pixar contains three necessary ingredients for success: business, tech, and art.
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Artists can’t tell someone else how to do what they do.
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The “art” of engineers is a kind that is meant to be used by others.
LOCATION: 3601

Many artists don’t know how they do what they do, let alone how to teach someone else to do it.
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a tech advance is meant to be used by all; an art advance is meant to be used by the artist.
LOCATION: 3608

These technicians contributed to the quality of the art, and yet the credit seems to go elsewhere.
LOCATION: 3616

This may be less exploitative than symbiotic, as some prefer to work in obscurity and avoid the anxiety of the limelight
LOCATION: 3617

The relationship between art and tech is mutually beneficial. The art that builders make is impersonal—it can be used by others to make their art.
LOCATION: 3622

Each of these technologies became art, but notably, each was developed alongside an artistic goal, hugging it like a double helix.
LOCATION: 3631

when technology becomes disjointed from art: it dates itself quickly and it lacks heart.
LOCATION: 3635

The relationship between art and tech is thus one that works best when the two work closely, with constant cross-pollination.
LOCATION: 3635

In his Harvard Business Review article, Pixar’s Catmull notes in a section titled “Power to the Creatives” that the creative power in a film has to reside with the creative leadership, not with the corporate executives.
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So, at Pixar, the development department’s job is not to tell the artists what to do, but to “help directors refine their own ideas” and “give them enormous
LOCATION: 3644

Businesspeople often fail to understand how art works.
LOCATION: 3649

Art requires a large investment in money that may not be repaid—essentially a gift.
LOCATION: 3653

when art and money can work together, they tend to create the greatest art the world has ever seen.
LOCATION: 3656

YOUR AGENT WORKS FOR YOU BUT YOU ALSO WORK FOR YOUR AGENT
LOCATION: 3668

The nature of the relationship is such that, in many cases, a person with an agent will earn more than a person without one. He has two people looking out for his financial health.
LOCATION: 3703

If either side can leave, both sides can have a say. But this marriage of equality requires the artist to put his foot down more than he may like.
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an artist can make art without an agent, but an agent needs an artist to make money. There are times when an artist needs to just say no.
LOCATION: 3716

“If you want to know the real secret of Walt’s success,” longtime animator Ward Kimball would say, “it’s that he never tried to make money. He was always trying to make something that he could have fun with to be proud
LOCATION: 3727

The business partner must truly value the art.
LOCATION: 3741

You can’t have a business partner who doesn’t see your value.
LOCATION: 3742

moneymen intermediaries serve to do something very necessary for successful artists, to “mark the boundary between their art and the
LOCATION: 3759

WHAT THE AGENT KNEW HOW BERNIE KEPT HENSON A HIPPIE
LOCATION: 3764

Henson took “merchandizing” to mean records and the soon-to-come videos that would themselves be art—not toys.
LOCATION: 3811

As an artist, with few exceptions, Henson took projects that he thought would be interesting, not projects that would make the most money.
LOCATION: 3815

But as much as artists need someone to fight for them, that “fighting” spirit is often detrimental “in the play room.”
LOCATION: 3844

Jobs’s true value to Pixar seemed to lie not in his famously obsessive perfectionism, but in his ability to negotiate with Disney—to be the barrier that protected the artists from money.
LOCATION: 3849

THE VALUE OF SEPARATION LAWYERING THE LAWLESS
LOCATION: 3851

One reason to have a legal department is so that artists don’t have to discuss money with one another.
LOCATION: 3852

What is so uncreative about money? Well, even though money sometimes rewards innovation, it more typically rewards a sure thing—whatever your audience currently pays for.
LOCATION: 3856

Copyright prevents the art—while in a nascent stage—from being traded freely according to laws of supply and demand.
LOCATION: 3862

Lawyers are of great value, not just because they are experts at contracts and legalities, but because their work means that artists don’t have to be.
LOCATION: 3880

It is essential that the lawyers for a creative company understand how to work with artists.
LOCATION: 3896

Perhaps the way for businesspeople to truly appreciate artists is to try to make art themselves, and to see—usually—that artistic talent is actually quite rare, and so it is something worth protecting.
LOCATION: 3912

HIRE A BOSS
LOCATION: 3916

Jim didn’t run his company like a good businessman. He could never fire anybody, couldn’t accept any plan for downsizing that was drawn up for him by his advisers.
LOCATION: 3943

The fact that Henson kept Brillstein (agent), Gottesman (lawyer), and Lazer (producer) all on the payroll rather than having these managers replace one another demonstrates this.
LOCATION: 3946

Henson was a collaborator. In a business where collaboration is more important than minimizing overhead, where hierarchies dissolve, and people often come to work with one another again and again, it does not make sense to burn bridges by firing.
LOCATION: 3948

FIND THE ANGEL FUNDER LORD LEW GRADE
LOCATION: 3953

an angel funder is one who takes on great risk for a start-up for reasons besides pure monetary reward.
LOCATION: 3955

Grade essentially agreed to fund a show which would only make him money if the toys sold well or if they re-syndicated a few years later—making The Muppet Show a wildly expensive project with only a dream’s hope of returning on his investment.
LOCATION: 3994

Grade. In a way, Grade found Henson, yet in another, Henson’s incredible work ethic helped him find Grade by putting enough work out there for Grade to stumble upon.
LOCATION: 4013

HOW TO GET THEM ALL TO WORK TOGETHER
LOCATION: 4018

You must trust your businesspeople, but that does not mean you should trust any businessperson.
LOCATION: 4022

Henson selected his “people” well so that they would not damage the spirit of his enterprise.
LOCATION: 4028

The first step was to invite them in—into his world—and make them want to be a part of it, to share his dream.
LOCATION: 4029

Patrons for the arts are often just normal people with money to spare.
LOCATION: 4031

While many artists write off all businessmen as heartless suits, Henson understood the debt he owed to them.
LOCATION: 4041

They, too, participate in the gift cycle of art.
LOCATION: 4042

Your masterpiece may be years away still, but it makes sense to start thinking today about how you could combine business, technology, and art to give the world something it’s never seen before.
LOCATION: 4048

PITCH, PITCH, PITCH AND THE INEVITABILITY OF FAILURE
LOCATION: 4120

When you hear the story about how The Muppet Show came to be, it sounds like a deus ex machina. Lew Grade’s ATV studio went looking for Henson and gave him a show. Brillstein’s breezy style certainly makes it appear that it was easy:
LOCATION: 4121

Yet the truth is that Henson had been pitching this show for years prior to Mandell’s offer. This windfall—the angel funder Lord Lew Grade—would never have come had Henson not cultivated his inner preacher, his inner pulpiteer.
LOCATION: 4128

It is something that separates the successful artist from the starving artist, the ability to sell oneself effectively.
LOCATION: 4130

Partly, it must’ve helped to have a manager who could see the steps it would take to get a major network interested. Brillstein urged him to take as many TV appearances as possible, saying, “I feel you need television exposure,”
LOCATION: 4135

The fact that Mandell happened to see Henson’s work on TV was not luck; it was the result of throwing hundreds of darts at the board.
LOCATION: 4138

Henson wanted a network to see. The ABC special The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence clearly outlined the show Henson wanted to make[7] —a quick-moving variety show with an at-the-dance number, the Electric Mayhem band, a backstage section, and even Sam the Eagle. This ABC special was essentially a pitch tape proving that puppets could work in prime time,
LOCATION: 4140

ARE PITCHMEN BORN OR MADE?
LOCATION: 4144

A good artist is likely already skilled at listening, learning, and appreciating. These traits fit well in the gift economy that is art.
LOCATION: 4152

However, when kept in check—in the service of the art—channeling one’s inner fanatic can break the artist out of his self-imposed poverty.
LOCATION: 4155

It is hard to say whether pitchmen are born or made. It is my suspicion that they are grown.
LOCATION: 4156

This tendency of enthusiasm to build upon itself suggests that you can teach yourself to pitch; you can work yourself up. The skill can be grown—for the right reasons.
LOCATION: 4173

What is the difference between a salesman and a pitchman? A salesman sells a commodity. A pitchman sells his own future
LOCATION: 4176

Becoming a pitchman was instrumental in getting Henson’s work aired and funded.
LOCATION: 4181

THE CONSTANT PITCHMAN
LOCATION: 4184

At the beginning, pitch like hell
LOCATION: 4187

Even with an agent, Henson still had to hustle. Even if it was Bernie who made initial contact, sussed out deals, or delivered the pitch, it was Henson who had to provide the material to be pitched. He seemed to pitch even more after Brillstein joined him, likely due to the growth of the company.
LOCATION: 4203

It took a great pitch to win over Brillstein—who was not very interested in puppets. And once Brillstein was on board, Henson had to pitch even more, because Brillstein got him more auditions and urged him to get more “exposure” and “media momentum.”
LOCATION: 4207

Throwing a lot of darts in all directions, then one big pitch
LOCATION: 4209

This only furthers the idea that there is no good time to stop pitching. Even when Ideal Toys had salesmen to do Henson’s job for him, Henson still needed to prime those salesmen to understand his ethos.
LOCATION: 4233

Even when he became an auteur and “authored” an art house film, Henson had to hustle.
LOCATION: 4237

For noncommercial works of art, distribution makes all the difference, and often, indie artists have to do the distribution themselves.
LOCATION: 4243

When you’ve put so much of your time, effort, and passion into something, it is hard not to feel like proselytizing.
LOCATION: 4245

And yet, in this 1960s period, Henson promoted both this art film and kiddie toys.
LOCATION: 4246

Brillstein wrote, “It was as if the guy had two careers: one public and successful, the other personal and noncommercial.
LOCATION: 4250

it is easier to pitch something that is both commercial and good than it is to pitch either alone.
LOCATION: 4252

Bull’s-eye: Pitch to find a home, then pitch to fly the coop
LOCATION: 4255

Part of the beauty of Sesame Street was that it was perfect for Henson—it combined both his commercial, persuasive skills and his philanthropic, artistic skills.
LOCATION: 4258

It is strange to think of anyone needing to “pitch” Sesame Street, and yet that is precisely what happened.
LOCATION: 4260

Even when the show aired, it needed to win over parents and teachers—the guardians who could control whether children watched or not.
LOCATION: 4264

Sesame Street was a new idea, and its premise—using commercial techniques to lure kids into learning—could have backfired. It is in great part due to Henson’s pitching prowess that Sesame Street won the country’s hearts.
LOCATION: 4266

Yet a moment of stability, like every other period of time, is not a good time to stop pitching. When Sesame Street made Henson a household name, he felt that it had “ruined [his] life” by barring his career from ever taking an adult route. Since he’d never wanted to relegate himself to the role of children’s entertainer, in this era, Henson pitched all the harder, this time to escape the pigeonhole he’d found himself in.
LOCATION: 4268

His characters already had a home on TV, but it wasn’t his own show—on Sesame Street, he had to answer to curriculum specialists. It wasn’t quite the Muppet series Henson had been dreaming of.
LOCATION: 4277

When used strategically, art can be a pitch.
LOCATION: 4292

Around 1968, … Jim started to seriously pitch his idea for a regular variety show hosted by the Muppets. Building on ideas from his guest appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show and the like, Jim created numerous proposals illustrating his concepts which he circulated to the networks, producers, and via his agent Bernie Brillstein.
LOCATION: 4298

Henson made compromises in order to be on television. His shows from this period included The Muppets Valentine Show with Mia Farrow and an Afterschool Special called Out to Lunch. In these instances, Henson seemed to be giving the networks what they said they wanted—tame kiddie fare—but also gave them what he knew was better—anarchic adult glee.
LOCATION: 4303

Henson pitched and made these shows because the perfect is the enemy of the good.
LOCATION: 4308

Far from a deus ex machina, The Muppet Show had been pitched seriously for about six years before the angel funder came along. And even then, it had to be pitched—to him.
LOCATION: 4323

This deal may seem like a gift from on high—and surely it was—and yet the pitch was ongoing, like a fish on the line that could still be lost at any moment.
LOCATION: 4330

The work itself can be a pitch
LOCATION: 4335

When Henson had finally got his dream—a national nighttime series for the Muppets, he was funded for only a single season. In effect, that made the success of the first season the pitch for next year’s renewal. As
LOCATION: 4335

With a few years of Muppet Show success behind him, Henson started to set his sights on the next target—
LOCATION: 4338

Dave Goelz once said, “I always think of TV as calisthenics and movies as craftsmanship. You get in shape with TV, because you do so much material so fast.…Then you go shoot a film, and you get the luxury of doing it
LOCATION: 4350

The work that is not a pitch
LOCATION: 4353

Luckily, Henson didn’t have to look far to find his funding for The Muppet Movie.
LOCATION: 4354

During Henson’s boom years, pitching seemed easy. And for as long as he was on top, it was.
LOCATION: 4358

Everything Henson had done thus far in movies and television seemed, in a way, to be a pitch for this one great film.
LOCATION: 4363

The Dark Crystal was even more artisanal. It really didn’t seem to be a pitch for anything—it is the thing itself, everything Henson wanted it to be.
LOCATION: 4366

Perhaps this is why The Dark Crystal’s poor reception was such a blow to Henson.
LOCATION: 4367

| Pitching more to get away from pitching so much
LOCATION: 4378

While Henson was making The Dark Crystal, he was also letting his core creative team from The Muppet Show develop the kind of show they’d like to do next, which became Fraggle Rock.
LOCATION: 4378

Yet the perceived failure of The Dark Crystal seemed to cause Henson to reevaluate his strategy. Since masterpiece movies did not return the investment,[46] Henson took a step back and began to throw more darts at the board again.
LOCATION: 4382

Henson had varying degrees of involvement in these shows, but in general, he was not very involved in the day-to-day production of them. It is almost as though Henson the auteur filmmaker had been burned by putting all of his eggs into one basket and here shifted to coming up with great ideas, getting the ball rolling, and letting others take the helm of a fleet of Henson-produced television projects.
LOCATION: 4390

In the 1980s, producerman Henson launched many ships with others at the helm, and let them take their own course.
LOCATION: 4403

At the age of fifty-one, Henson still had to pitch. And his bad-temperedness suggests he was starting to tire of it. The lifestyle of a producerman may have seemed at the start of the eighties like the best way for Henson to keep making art, but at the end of the decade, it seemed like another thing to work away from. Though he pitched more furiously than ever then, it seemed to be in order to escape pitching.
LOCATION: 4414

It has been said that Henson was a man of a million ideas—he was always thinking towards the next project. This could explain his life of constant pitching, and yet I don’t think Henson was happy to merely hand off his ideas to others.
LOCATION: 4419

Henson’s furious pitches in the eighties may have been an attempt to get away from the whole endeavor of pitching altogether.
LOCATION: 4425

Appearing hot in order to cool down
LOCATION: 4426

If Disney were to buy Henson’s Muppet business, they would become his new angel funder—promising to green-light any expensive project he wanted, because he would work exclusively for them.
LOCATION: 4427

proposition—it would mean Henson could spend less time pitching and more time creating.
LOCATION: 4429

All that producerman pitching in the eighties starts to seem like a deliberate strategy to attract Disney’s interest.
LOCATION: 4437

As Brillstein wrote, Henson wanted to “get out from under the organizational albatross that drained his creative energy.… With Disney’s money and machinery, Jim could be fully creative.”[57] As a funded artist at Disney, Henson could stop being a producerman, and he might not even have to be a pitchman.
LOCATION: 4441

My view of Henson is that, from the start, he cultivated the skill of the pitch in order to achieve artistic aims. And if a shy creator like Henson could do it, anyone can.
LOCATION: 4447

FAIL, FAIL, FAIL PITCHING IS THE EASY PART
LOCATION: 4449

If we try to cultivate our own ability to pitch—to preach—we might start by getting wrapped up in the good things in others’ work, then really working to appreciate and revel in the good things in our work, until we finally get obsessed with convincing others of what could be.
LOCATION: 4449

Expressing enthusiasm for your work is, in fact, the easy part of pitching. The hard part is all the failure.
LOCATION: 4453

Pitching and selling gives you an innocent, childlike high, such that when one is suitably addicted, it offsets the pain of failure.
LOCATION: 4456

everyone successful fails in monstrous proportions matching their success. It’s just that they promote the success louder than the failure.
LOCATION: 4460

Ironically, the road to Henson’s success is a string of failures, and this was as true for Henson as it is for anyone else.
LOCATION: 4462

JOHNNY CARSON AND THE MUPPET MACHINE NEVER MADE
LOCATION: 4464

Picture yourself spending a day in wasted art, because that is what the labor of a successful artist looks like.
LOCATION: 4475

CYCLIA NEVER MADE
LOCATION: 4479

In the descriptions of his nightclub project Cyclia, Jim hoped to match quieter music with filmed depictions of nature
LOCATION: 4484

B’WAY THE DESTINY OF GREAT PUPPETRY, BUT NOT FOR HENSON
LOCATION: 4495

Broadway may have occupied a place in Henson’s mind as the site where critical success and respect would finally be afforded to his work, even if it was only a lowly puppet show.
LOCATION: 4505

It may be true that if Henson had not been so busy working on TV projects—The Muppet Show pitch, SNL, and Sesame Street—he might have made it to Broadway.
LOCATION: 4523

Brillstein wrote, “My one regret is that I never got him to do An Evening with the Muppets on Broadway. I believe if he had, it would still be running
LOCATION: 4544

B’way was a failure every year of Henson’s career. But it was also a possibility every year of his career—because he refused to close the door on something just because it was difficult to achieve.
LOCATION: 4547

The theme of that song, and that movie, is that artists—like you—need to be able to fail this hard and to be able to get back up and try again.
LOCATION: 4552

Some doors are closed permanently—but if you look at it another way, they’re not really closed—they’re just angled to lead somewhere new.
LOCATION: 4553

REUSE, REPURPOSE, RECYCLE
LOCATION: 4554

The beauty of turning Henson’s Broadway failure into a Hollywood love story is that he was at once accepting defeat in the present and holding onto the possibility of success in the future.
LOCATION: 4563

When NBC caught up and became more experimental, they remembered Henson’s pitch. Had he not subjected himself to failure, he would not have been forefront in their minds.
LOCATION: 4580

Henson’s pitch—though technically a failure—actually primed NBC to be more aware of experimental content and its value to their changing audience.
LOCATION: 4582

In many ways, a life of constant pitching is a life of constant failure.
LOCATION: 4587

When you watch an artist struggle and fail, think to yourself, How can I do that? How can I keep failing and keep pitching?
LOCATION: 4589

RE-SYNDICATE, CO-FUND, RE-PROFIT
LOCATION: 4590

Another benefit to pitching widely is that it tends to create more offers to fund your work.
LOCATION: 4591

With some clever sleight-of-hand, giving the same thing to multiple people yields a higher amount of funding.
LOCATION: 4592

Henson was able to pay the Fraggle Rock writers, performers, and artists well because of the extra money from both CBC and HBO.
LOCATION: 4621

For all the drawbacks that come with relentless pitching, I believe it is the single most important thing that can allow an artist to control his own financial destiny.
LOCATION: 4624

HOW TO CULTIVATE YOUR PITCHIFICATION
LOCATION: 4625

So how can you become a pitchman? Find what it is that you can’t shut up about.
LOCATION: 4626

Henson’s preachification leads me to wonder—is the shyest, most reluctant self-promoter perhaps the best pitchman? If he finds something worth overcoming shyness to preach, perhaps no one can silence him.
LOCATION: 4633

When you make something really great on spec, it can be a risk, but ultimately it gives you the power to control your artistic destiny.
LOCATION: 4638

If you can stomach failure, pitching allows you to say and do what you want, not just what the market wants.
LOCATION: 4639

In order to have your independence—your creative freedom—as an artist, you have to just keep pitching.
LOCATION: 4643

You can convince people of anything, as long as you try enough people, and as long as you really believe in it yourself. If you believe in your art, make a pitch for it today.
LOCATION: 4644

NURTURE TALENT AND GET OUT OF ITS WAY
LOCATION: 4717

Brian Henson has said of his father: He taught me to identify a person’s talent, nurture that talent, and encourage them to look to themselves for a solution.
LOCATION: 4723

A good boss, like a good teacher, empowers his employees.
LOCATION: 4725

Henson’s lessons are so imbedded in our psyches we don’t even notice them.
LOCATION: 4740

The real way to create innovation and collaboration is by setting an example—starting with oneself.
LOCATION: 4748

First, let us distinguish Henson’s approach from those who resemble him most. ALTERNATIVES: WALT
LOCATION: 4759

Starting from the ground up, each created a successful business by making quality popular art that would last for generations.
LOCATION: 4762

Both men owned their own companies yet were capable of getting into the mind of a goofy mutt. By studying the subtle expressions that give a character emotion and depth, each could transform this awareness into lifelike characters.
LOCATION: 4771

Similarly, pranks were common in Henson’s workshops and studios,
LOCATION: 4780

And both Henson and Disney nurtured their talented artists.
LOCATION: 4786

in many ways, being a visionary means protecting your vision.
LOCATION: 4798

Both men asked for great quality from their artists, yet, on closer inspection, Henson and Disney could not appear more different. NOT WALT
LOCATION: 4804

Disney had a vision that was not just strong, but unilateral and absolute.
LOCATION: 4806

“God help you,” a writer warned, if you took his idea in the wrong direction.
LOCATION: 4810

“He was a genius at using someone else’s genius.”
LOCATION: 4818

By contrast, Henson’s employees never went on strike, except in nationwide movements,
LOCATION: 4819

Unlike Disney, Henson happily listened to others and incorporated their visions into his own.
LOCATION: 4824

Henson is a good listener and if someone has an idea that is better than his own, he accepts it without hesitation. It is because of this that the others listen to him and accept direction without feeling resentment.
LOCATION: 4826

[H]is total generosity … a good idea could come from anywhere
LOCATION: 4832

If my suggestion was good, he accepted it without question. If he rejected a suggestion, he would always explain why it wouldn’t work.
LOCATION: 4837

Brillstein wrote, “Jim was not the kind to act stubborn.…If I had a counterargument, he always listened and considered it fairly.”
LOCATION: 4838

While Disney seemed to have no problem shutting another artist down, Brillstein said Henson was careful not to stunt another’s creativity:
LOCATION: 4840

Henson put his people first, knowing it would help them make better art.
LOCATION: 4846

In contrast to Disney’s egotism, Henson took the time to give his artists credit in all the ways he could.
LOCATION: 4847

“he appreciated everything and it extended to not just the performances, but also to any expertise that anyone
LOCATION: 4848

Though Walt Disney was an unforgettable entrepreneur, Henson’s care for others seemed to supersede his perfectionism, and in that he is decidedly different from Disney.
LOCATION: 4851

To Disney, animation was “a way of … finding absolute control,”[42] Whereas to Henson, puppetry was “a way of
LOCATION: 4858

Though Henson’s shyness and reluctance to hurt others might sound weak, especially in business, it is a powerful quality that may in fact be the best way to manage talented artists, since self-control allows a person to hold back, do no harm, and to listen more than he talks, to truly appreciate and nurture the talent of others.
LOCATION: 4860

ALTERNATIVES: LORNE
LOCATION: 4863

Since Disney’s management style was more controlling than Henson’s, perhaps a better comparison is to Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels.
LOCATION: 4864

perfectionism was thrown out the window in favor of rawer, human talent and collaboration.
LOCATION: 4865

Lorne just believed in what he was doing and nobody was going to get in his way.…His willpower outlasted everybody else’s. He cared the most about this show. Everyone else cared more about something
LOCATION: 4867

Unlike Disney, he gave his comedians the freedom to innovate, experiment, play—often overly hard, as with John Belushi or Chris Farley.
LOCATION: 4872

Though partying can seem “unprofessional,” it is in fact the essence of collaboration,
LOCATION: 4874

Lorne Michaels was so informal that Will Farrell didn’t even know he’d been hired.
LOCATION: 4880

NOT LORNE
LOCATION: 4889

More than a few of Michaels’s performers thought of him as a father figure, and this makes artistic sense, because if his comedians felt childlike, they could better play
LOCATION: 4889

Yet Michaels seems to be a very specific kind of father. Some described him as “manipulative”[59] or “infantilizing.”
LOCATION: 4891

By contrast, Henson seemed to conduct his crew through appreciation,
LOCATION: 4896

While Michaels loved to hear himself talk, Henson loved to listen. And while Michaels was stingy with praise, Henson was reluctant to ever give criticism.
LOCATION: 4905

The whole Muppet thing works best when people are free and open and feel like nobody will criticize you.
LOCATION: 4908

He’d expect you to do the best you can, but he also knew where you came
LOCATION: 4909

He was just very delighted to be a part of it all, and he was—next take was better.
LOCATION: 4914

Henson himself used delight in the positive aspects of his work to make the next one better.
LOCATION: 4916

When he met Caroll Spinney for the first time, Spinney had just bombed on stage
LOCATION: 4918

Jim said, “I really loved what you were trying to do.” And he was absolutely sincere about it.
LOCATION: 4919

An artist has his own internal judge of quality, and it’s not necessary, Henson knew, to point his mistakes out to him.
LOCATION: 4921

if he thought something hadn’t been done well, he would never ever say that, and he’d say, “Hey, I wonder if we just should try…” and somehow he would turn the corner and it would be a positive.
LOCATION: 4923

We are tough on ourselves and tough on others. But perhaps a better way to improve is to stop criticizing ourselves and simply appreciate what is good about our work, so that the next take will be better.
LOCATION: 4927

Being gentle in business is certainly an uncommon approach, but one that may suit creative companies the best.
LOCATION: 4930

What made Henson’s business different was that it didn’t start out with a traditional organizational hierarchy—with an orderly chain of command of unbreakable ranks—and as it grew, Henson Associates remained informal, with inspiration coming from the center, rather than orders coming from above.
LOCATION: 4937

Bad bosses make their work harder for themselves, because the more greedy, fearful, angry, and lazy you are, the harder it becomes to compel others to do good work.
LOCATION: 4939

by being fearless, hardworking, generous, and calm, Henson’s attitude easily spread out in a contagious way to those around him.
LOCATION: 4941

Jim would try all kinds of things, and he was not afraid to try something new, and if he could see it happening in his mind’s eye and knew that it would work, he would dog it until it worked.
LOCATION: 4945

Jim Henson inspired people to do huge amounts of work, but he did so by giving of himself.
LOCATION: 4948

Rank didn’t matter to Henson the way it would to a normal businessman. And for an artist interested in collaborating, it shouldn’t.
LOCATION: 4961

The center-out model is what we typically see in a rock group or gang, with a charismatic center orbited by others.
LOCATION: 4969

Yet if we shift the lens a bit and view things from inside the operation, this is how a troupe of artists works—like a good group of friends.
LOCATION: 4984

To criticize a motorcycle gang or garage band of cronyism would be nonsensical, because it’s not a government, corporation, or any kind of compulsory power structure. It’s more like a utopia—a tiny society formed on its own foundation.
LOCATION: 4985

Working with friends tends to increase the amount of emotional bonds that keep employees dedicated to the project.
LOCATION: 4987

Henson didn’t seem to see things through the typical business lens. He saw the human side of the equation and the benefits it would lend to art.
LOCATION: 4988

What makes Henson so special was not that he was able to create his unique business model once, with Jane and Jerry Juhl, but that he understood the process enough to set up these groups—which could function on their own in his absence—and help them grow.
LOCATION: 4993

Two good examples of satellite Hensonian groups are the London Creature Shop and Toronto’s Fraggle Rock.
LOCATION: 4996

If we look at the similarities between these groups, we can derive a formula for scaling the start-up mentality that artists and innovators need to thrive: instead of growing bigger, Henson’s groups grew more numerous.
LOCATION: 4998

In setting up both of these projects, Henson needed to give the crews two things—the time and space to co-create their worlds.
LOCATION: 4999

Henson said, “By keeping a group of people together, we are staying closer to what we’ve always done with the Muppets, where we had our own builders. That way you can make it better every time and build on your past
LOCATION: 5006

A 24-hour place is expensive. Ultimately, to “keep a group of people together,” Henson had to sacrifice part of his artistic vision, having the Creature Shop do work for commercials,
LOCATION: 5011

Giving collaborators time and space is akin to giving them Gladwell’s ten thousand hours, but Henson also gave them something more: ownership of their work.
LOCATION: 5036

For The Dark Crystal, each design team in the Creature Shop oversaw their creature from start to finish, essentially giving engineers the creative authority of artists.
LOCATION: 5037

Giving an artist not just credit but creative control over his work makes managerial sense. It also makes artistic sense.
LOCATION: 5041

When each character has been shepherded to the film by a single builder, the character’s evolution starts to resemble the way real creatures evolve.
LOCATION: 5042

RADICAL KINDNESS NEVER MAD
LOCATION: 5060

He was always really calm about
LOCATION: 5068

Henson held back, which is one of the hardest things for a boss to do.
LOCATION: 5072

When we micromanage the creative work of others, we tend to do more harm than good.
LOCATION: 5081

“Jim’s characters … were all part of him, but none more so than Kermit, who occupied the exact same relationship to the Muppet Show characters as Jim did to his
LOCATION: 5087

It seemed that Henson channeled his frustration into an outlet that ultimately helped his employees rather than stifling them—through successful comedy.
LOCATION: 5091

But shyness can also lead to effective leadership, because an introverted person is one with a massive amount of self-control.
LOCATION: 5106

Givers, takers, and matchers all can—and do—achieve success. But there’s something distinctive that happens when givers succeed: it spreads and cascades.
LOCATION: 5110

when [givers] win, people are rooting for them and supporting them, rather than gunning for them.
LOCATION: 5112

Givers succeed in a way that creates a ripple effect, enhancing the success of people around
LOCATION: 5113

Instead of asking people to work harder, Henson showed them how. Instead of criticizing his employees, Henson criticized no one. Instead of taking credit, he gave it to others.
LOCATION: 5114

He started out with an attitude of compassion and let that inspire the rest of his day.
LOCATION: 5122

With meditation, more than restricting or controlling himself, Henson was able to coach or guide himself to grow better without stigmatizing his present failings.
LOCATION: 5131

LET PEOPLE SURPRISE YOU GET OUT OF THE WAY
LOCATION: 5138

Part of the effect of characters being performed by two people was to push more improvisation.
LOCATION: 5143

This is the ultimate goal of artists—to surprise oneself by one’s own performance—because only by doing this can we surprise our audience.
LOCATION: 5148

Henson was happy to be surprised by his writers. As a boss, he wanted you to explore your vision.
LOCATION: 5157

SYNTHESIS SYMPHONY OF CREATIVES
LOCATION: 5176

Henson’s goal as a leader was, as Steve Whitmire said, “seeing to it that this person does what they need to do
LOCATION: 5177

they also needed to know what exactly they were working towards.
LOCATION: 5179

Fraggle Rock producer Larry Mirkin often said, “we were all working in service of the best
LOCATION: 5179

Since this trial-and-error process is how many artists already work, as Midener did, it seems like the natural way to coax the best from people.
LOCATION: 5189

Henson appreciated everyone for what they did well. But in order to get everyone doing their best, each artist had to ultimately cede to the best idea, and Henson did not allow every idea to enter his creations.
LOCATION: 5210

Henson understood that best way to talk about weaknesses is to turn them into strengths.
LOCATION: 5216

Ultimately, difference is a positive thing for a symphony of creatives.
LOCATION: 5225

NO BIG BOSSMAN HAVE BEER IN A FRIDGE IN YOUR OFFICE
LOCATION: 5229

“you don’t work for Jim Henson, you work with Jim Henson”
LOCATION: 5232

It is entirely possible to have a management structure with no “top dog.”
LOCATION: 5242

When working for Henson, your role seemed to matter more than your rank—contractors,
LOCATION: 5249

In a small start-up where workers could leave and go home, a hierarchy-less system worked.
LOCATION: 5253

The Muppets’ affectionate anarchy might just be the best management model an artist can have.
LOCATION: 5253

Having no boss was something that must’ve had a profoundly freeing psychological effect on Henson. He knew the value of it. With no boss over him, it likely seemed natural to step back and share the freedom he felt with others.
LOCATION: 5264

The first step toward being an uncommon boss is to find a way to have no boss.
LOCATION: 5266

No, we each lead ourselves, and we all lead each other.
LOCATION: 5272

In a hierarchy where pecking order is important, there is much competition and aggression, but in Henson’s business, much of that could be channeled into the work itself.
LOCATION: 5279

Henson’s business seemed more like a family, where dominance is replaced with teaching, training the employees to become their own bosses.
LOCATION: 5293

HOW TO BECOME A RADICAL ENABLER
LOCATION: 5305

The first step to becoming a good boss is to throw off all bosses, if not literally—by starting a business—then emotionally, as much as you can, by thinking of yourself as the only boss of yourself.
LOCATION: 5306

Whenever it is possible to get control of your project, fight for it.
LOCATION: 5309

When you are the boss, you control everything.
LOCATION: 5311

If you are the boss, trust yourself. Banish fear from your thoughts through meditation, and use meditative activities that help you to understand what Henson said: You’re not the victim, but instead you’re the one who’s doing it.…[Y]ou are the person who ha[s] control of your
LOCATION: 5312

Even if you don’t have experience doing what your workers do, you need to find a way to learn about it.
LOCATION: 5320

As a boss, Henson was best suited to lead smaller groups, where innovation and creativity thrive. For most artists, this is exactly where we want to be anyway, not at the helm of a corporate behemoth.
LOCATION: 5335

The easiest person to change is yourself, and that is easiest to do when you are your own boss.
LOCATION: 5339

The inner calm that he brought to his leadership stemmed from a fundamental satisfaction with the amount of control he had over his life.
LOCATION: 5340

The way to encourage others to surprise you is to work with them—not above or below them, but with them—and to try to have fun doing it. And most importantly, exercise your appreciation of others.
LOCATION: 5342

YOUR COMPANY IS YOURS ALONE YOU’RE STUCK WITH WHAT YOU’VE MADE
LOCATION: 5480

The real key to making money as an artist is copyright—owning it, investing in it, and licensing it
LOCATION: 5481

Owning one’s work firstly means being able to protect it from being changed or exploited by others. And secondly, it allows the artist to recycle one’s previous works in an organic cycle of growth. When an artist can freely build on his previous successes and failures, he can keep doing what works and use what doesn’t for scrap parts.
LOCATION: 5489

As we saw, Henson’s reaction to failure was not to feel shame, but simply to appreciate what was good about it and to try to make the next take better.
LOCATION: 5494

You should never waste an idea, even if it’s terrible. There’s likely something in there that could work.
LOCATION: 5495

You should always fight to own your own work. Copyright allows artists to build upon what they’ve done.
LOCATION: 5501

STAY PRIVATE THINK TWICE ABOUT GOING PUBLIC
LOCATION: 5506

But the reason Henson could avoid talking money when he wanted to talk art was that legally, he was not required to disclose any of that information—his company wasn’t public.
LOCATION: 5521

For artists, a public company means having many bosses, and less artistic freedom.
LOCATION: 5529

Though he would have to seek funding at times from producer Lew Grade and networks for expensive projects, for the most part, his enterprise was funded by its own products—commercial work and merchandise. To never have to deal with stockholders’ desires
LOCATION: 5541

It allowed him to control the destiny of his own company, answering only to his own artistic standards of excellence.
LOCATION: 5544

OWN EVERYTHING YOU DO PAY UP TO BUY YOURSELF BACK
LOCATION: 5547

Owning your work has clear financial benefits, but it can be incredibly costly.
LOCATION: 5548

Henson made a lot of money this way, firstly by owning the copyright, rather than letting the coffee company keep it, and secondly by buying his contract back from the ad agency. It paid off.
LOCATION: 5558

Jim had broken the one rule they warn you about in Hollywood: Never put your own money in your
LOCATION: 5574

In the long view, Henson’s decision to buy back the film paid off. And yet, in the short term, it was thought a foolish choice by many, and at the very least, it was a risky choice.
LOCATION: 5586

Like children, artworks can be separated from the artist, and yet a parent can never truly “let go.” And in business—when we arrange our fiscal contracts—it makes sense to set up a scenario that conforms to this feeling. As
LOCATION: 5606

THE DISNEY SALE HIS MOTIVES AND THEIRS
LOCATION: 5611

In many ways, the Muppet deal was a classic Disney acquisition. The Muppets were irreplaceable assets, characters that had been created by Henson’s genius and elevated to their current popularity through years of nurturing. They were not the kinds of assets that could be created by forming a new division of Disney or giving an assignment to existing creative personnel.
LOCATION: 5624

Another likely motivation of Disney’s—though hidden—was that Henson was Disney’s competition.
LOCATION: 5636

To Henson, Disney must’ve looked like the ideal angel funder, willing to write a check for his expensive projects.
LOCATION: 5649

“Disney was promising to back any movie project Jim wanted to do. That was huge.”[37] The promise to fund any project was paramount to the barrier-breaking Henson, who was eager to experiment with 3-D movies and theme park rides, which were too costly to produce on his own.
LOCATION: 5650

He was an artist first and foremost, and he needed to concentrate on his work and come up with magnificent ideas like he always had. With Disney’s money and machinery, Jim could be fully creative.
LOCATION: 5661

In his mind, the Disney deal would allow Henson to make more art and have to do less business. Because in fact, he didn’t sell his entire company to Disney, just the branch that made the money—“the licensing and publishing businesses of Henson Associates,
LOCATION: 5663

Henson was keeping his creative team, his production company, and his Creature Shop and jettisoning the licensing and publishing—the business
LOCATION: 5668

Henson himself earned a kind of immortality through his art. He was a self-taught artist who collaborated with others like himself, just as the soldier danced and played with the beggar.
LOCATION: 5694

you can’t really sell your company and keep control of your art.
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On the whole, there is nothing wrong with a large corporation, as long as it has a “heart.”
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BECOMING DISNEY SMALL COMPANY, BIG COMPANY
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For an artist–entrepreneur, it makes a lot of sense to keep your business small. The bigger you get, the more time you have to spend on business and the more businesspeople you need to hire.
LOCATION: 5785

I’ve never particularly wanted to have a large organization. The trick is to try to stay small enough to be creative but still be able to do all the projects we want to do—and not get so big where you spend all your time just managing people and trying to keep everybody working
LOCATION: 5792

If a company’s profits depend on quality—as an artist–entrepreneur’s do—then a small company is ideal for maintaining quality control.
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In effect, Henson’s business manager, Brillstein, was advising him to spread himself thin—to produce more shows than he could effectively quality control—to become a bigger company than an artist can sustain.
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as Henson did not want to be a big company, he did want to be Disneylike in one aspect—creating his own theme park attractions.
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While Henson wanted a small company, he also wanted Disney’s one-of-a-kind playground and the funding that made it possible.
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MERGER PROBLEMS CULTURE CLASH—WHAT WENT WRONG
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“Everyone [in the Henson Company] said it’s been awful. It was clear that they’ve been having a severe culture
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In Hollywood, the Disney name is synonymous with rigid, aggressive corporate control. The Henson atelier is informal and respect for the artist is the first
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Disney wanted to take away both the Muppet performers’ creative ownership of their characters and their financial ownership of toy royalties; this is clearly not an “artist-first” business philosophy.
LOCATION: 5892

Just before the merger, Pixar’s Chief Technical Officer, Ed Catmull, told his employees, “Our number-one priority [is] protecting the culture that we’[ve] built and the way our people work together. A real creative community is a rare
LOCATION: 5914

WE WILL LIVE FOREVER ON THE IMMORTALITY OF KERMIT
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Henson had two objectives when he decided to sell to Disney. He put the Muppets in a sort of Valhalla, where the Disney experts could package and promote them for all time. The deal also allowed Henson to get away from the bureaucracy so he could focus on and fund new
LOCATION: 5963

One gets the sense that it is in this small company, still family-run, that Kermit’s energy was meant to live on—perhaps not in the same copyrightable shape, but in the same spirit of collective creativity.
LOCATION: 5987

HOW TO RETAIN OWNERSHIP
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Henson’s role as an artist–entrepreneur gave him great freedom—artistic freedom—which rested on his copyrights and the shares of stock he owned in his own company.
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for an artist, it is harder to truly cash out, because the things you’ve made are not mere impersonal gadgets or algorithms; they are extensions of your personality. They are more like our children. Protect your art. Hold onto it. Control its destiny.
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MAKE YOUR WORLD IN ITS LIGHT
LOCATION: 6024

What Jim Henson did with his life was amazing. He seemed to approach his career with the idea that he could do anything, so what was worth doing?
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Art helps us explore what we believe through self-exploration, and often we uncover ideas we didn’t know we had.
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I believe that we form our own lives, that we create our own reality, and that everything works out for the best.
LOCATION: 6075

Most people, and particularly kids, don’t realize that they are in control of their lives and they’re the ones that are going to make the decisions and they’re the ones that are going to make it either way.
LOCATION: 6083

To become whole, the artist needs to join with his opposite—the businessman.
LOCATION: 6090

Jim Henson said: “The feeling of accomplishment is more real and satisfying than finishing a good meal or looking at one’s accumulated wealth.”
LOCATION: 6105

When you make your heart the boss of your life, you can accomplish things that no one can take away from you.
LOCATION: 6107

There are millions of people out there who’ll tell you it can’t be done. They are the naysayers, the been-there-done-thats, the people in the audience who know the ending already. Believe in the never-before. The miracle. The surprise. Because no one knows the future. Even the smartest scientist and the most jaded historian will tell you he has no idea what tomorrow will bring. Jim Henson believed that we create our own reality. Do you?
LOCATION: 6124

2 Comments

An epic post, Kevin. I read this book last year and was amazed at the value and research that Elizabeth put into it. You’ve done a fantastic job of condensing it down to its essence.

Like many others of my generation, Mr. Henson’s work is literally embedded into my DNA. His characters helped my brain develop in a fun way as I learned to count, read, and spell. When I was older, I was able to enjoy and appreciate his epic art pieces (The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth) for what they were, even if they did not bring quite the critical acclaim he was hoping for. Even at this stage of my life, the memory of Jim Henson’s commitment to craft and his enduring legacy of believing in (and developing) the talents of those around him serve as an example to me.

I especially love how in those early years in the sixties, when Jim wasn’t doing what he really wanted to yet, he was able to hone his craft on commercials while getting paid, biding his time until he could get the opportunities that he knew would come his way.

He saw money how all artists should: for the creative possibilities it could open up. He was generous and invested not only in equipment but in talented people. As a result, his legacy includes not just a great body of work, but legions of artists who adhere to his same philosophy and work ethic. I can think of few better artists to emulate.